A slippery slope to forcing all countries to allow the vote at sixteen for all votes  The European Union should not be interfering with individual member’s electoral systems, it is clear that this is an area where it is up to the members to decide who can vote and when. Even when it comes to elections for the European Parliament it is up to each member to decide the form of the election within certain ground rules. [1] In this case the interference would not be direct; the European parliament would not be passing any legislation saying that national and regional parliaments must allow votes at sixteen because they don’t have the power to do that but by allowing voting at sixteen they would be making national elections look inconsistent. It would quickly be seen as illegitimate to allow sixteen and seventeen year olds the vote in some elections and not others without a good justification. As the level of election that is most distant from the individual if there were to be a discrepancy in voting ages it should logically be the other way around with the most abstract vote being granted last.  [1] European Parliament, ‘About Parliament - Members’, europarl.europa.eu,  , accessed 3 May 2013