A majority of the people who will become eligible to vote when the voting age drops to 18 from 20 next June, intend to cast ballots in next summer's pivotal Upper House election, an online survey conducted by Kyodo News found.
In the survey, conducted via the survey site Micromill on June 17 and 18, covered 1,038 people aged 17 and 18 and found that 65.7 percent of the respondents intend to vote, far higher than the 31.4 percent of 20-year-olds who voted in the previous election in 2013.
Those who don't intend to vote stood at 12.9 percent, with 21.4 percent undecided.
Of those surveyed, 88 percent said they were aware that the voting age will drop and 12 percent said they were not.
When asked whether they had faith in politicians, 80.8 percent said no and 19.2 percent said yes.
Meanwhile, on whether the age of adulthood under the Civil Code should also be lowered from 20 to 18, 33 percent said yes and 57.5 percent said no.
The revised Public Offices Election Law, set to take effect on June 19 next year, will apply to the next triennial House of Councilors election, allowing 2.4 million teenagers to join the electorate.