The first quadrennial unified local elections to be held after the voting age was lowered to 18 in June 2015 are being hampered by concerns about the youngest voters' low voting rate.
Since most are going through important life changes in April, such as entering college, starting work and moving to new homes, they tend to have little interest in the local elections.
In the most recent national elections — the Upper House poll in 2016 and the Lower House poll in 2017 — the turnout for 18-year-olds was higher than for 19-year-olds, apparently thanks to high school efforts to teach the importance of voting.
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