Around 85,000 new voters to be registered due to automatic registration

Around 85,000 new voters will be registered when automatic voter registration is introduced, chief returning officer Elikkos Ilias said on Wednesday.

In addition, he said, should the government’s plans for the voting age to be reduced to 17 be passed by parliament, a further 6,900 people will be registered to vote.

He said the government is not “placing a bet” that “17-year-olds are mature enough to vote”, but instead placing a bet that those surrounding them will be able to instil in them the required maturity.

“The bet is more whether we as parents, as grandparents, and as teachers, can instil in them the political consciousness of the importance of voting and the importance of choosing the people who decide on their lives and for their future,” he said.

He added that the 17-year-olds of today are “quite mature”, and that “we have an obligation as adults to transfer our accumulated knowledge to them and to pass on to them an understanding of the importance of the right to vote, and also the importance of the obligation to choose the right people to decide to them.”

He also said that with the new changes, the election booklet would be abolished.

The booklet was historically a staple of elections in Cyprus, but, Ilias said, “since mandatory was abolished on the one hand, and now voter registration will be abolished, there is no reason for the booklet to exist, and taxpayers will be able to save money by not having to bear the administrative costs of issuing and maintaining it.”

“The abolition of the election booklet is another step in simplifying the procedures in Cyprus’ public sector,” he said.

A total of 706,534 people had registered to vote for June’s European and local elections, with 568,608 of those having been Republic of Cyprus citizens not including Turkish Cypriots who live in the north.

The next elections due to take place in the Republic of Cyprus are the parliamentary elections of May 2026.

The government approved the two bills to introduce automatic voter registration and reduce Cyprus’ voting age last week, saying the decision was aimed at “contributing to the promotion and consolidation of the culture of democracy in the new generation”, while also allowing for the right to vote to be “exercised more broadly”.

In lowering its voting age from 18 to 17, Cyprus brings its legislation into line with that of Greece, which lowered its own voting age in 2016.