I agree with this entirely. Yes it's true that most eleven year-olds probably aren't knowledgeable enough to make a well-informed choice about political candidates, but the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that most fifty year-olds aren't very well-informed either. And yet, everyone gets to vote (and, of course, many people choose not to). Everyone, that is, except for that would-be eleven year-old voter.
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Abolish the Voting Age
10 May 2008 04:49 pm
Comments (54)
Me and my underage friends used to hang around polling places on Election Day, trying to get people to go in and vote for us.
I mean, not vote for us--vote for us, like normal teens would try to have an older person buy liquor for them.
Forget it, it wasn't that funny anyway.
I think that's the best idea I've ever heard. I mean. The polling places are already in schools.
I think the issue might be that their teachers might pressure them, though. And, we can't keep teachers from talking about Jesus in school. Imagine what a horrible mess keeping them from talking about the election would be.
I'm trying to imagine the new kind of political pandering you might see in such a situation. Will "...and a pony!" move from the metaphorical to the literal?
Oh, right. And parents trying to vote for their infants. Maybe it should be lowered to 5 instead, or something. Cause. Yeah.
I'm not so sure. There's a lot more to the concept of an age of majority than the capacity to be "politically informed." Minors have diminished legal and political rights, but also diminished responsibilities. Marriage, ability to enter into legal contracts, being tried as an adult rather than a juvenile, and of course, draft eligibility -- there's a certain symmetry to achieving full membership in democracy along with its consequences at one time. Maybe that time could be 16 or even 15 rather than 18, but I'm not sure how wise it is to extend the franchise without rethinking everything that it entails.
I can't tell if the original post is a modest proposal or not, but if not, it's an almost unconscionably stupid argument. Among other things, it implies that we're going to need to adjudicate a primary parent for every single child in the country who's too young to read the ballot themselves.
I guess this is probably the logical consequence of maintaining that voting is the universal human right of all citizens in our society.
I'm going to go the exact opposite way and say that we ought to re-institute stringent poll tests. Ignorant people should not have the franchise, mentally imbalanced people should not have the franchise, and children should not have the franchise.
Sure, why not. We're so screwed anyhow... Just out of curiosity, though, when was the last time (since you were 11 yourself, not so long ago) that you actually had a conversation with an 11-year old?
You realize that lowering the voting age is going to move American politics towards the right?
Minor children, one presumes, will vote largely under the influence of their parents. Most of them probably share the views of their parents-- it isn't till people start college/ work/ moving away from home or whatever that they usually start strongly disagreeing with the views that their parents and teachers have inculcated in them. Even if they don't share the views of their parents most children feel emotional loyalty to their parents and will vote the way they want them to.
Families with children in the USA _tend_ to be a bit more conservative, the more so the larger they are. This is very much not true in Latin America, and I don't know about Europe, but it appears to be true in the USA. Therefore allowing children to vote will produce more Republican voters.
I read this, and I see "give parents extra votes." As far as I'm concerned, far too many policies are already warped by a desire to suck up to people with large families.
"I read this, and I see "give parents extra votes." As far as I'm concerned, far too many policies are already warped by a desire to suck up to people with large families."
Yup.
However, giving older teens a half vote would get them engaged at an earlier age. That's a group that won't follow parents blindly. The peer pressure would vary by locality and wouldn't be any different than adult subcultures already experience. As a HS Gov teacher, I am entirely in favor of this plan.
My HS seniors are psyched to vote this fall, en masse, for Democrats. Some of them have conservative dispositions and temperments, are elitist and eying future professional class incomes, or are unsophisticated policy analysts, but they didn't need me to teach them that the GOP is a joke that needs to be booted from power post-haste. Too bad this is all in California and not a more likely swing State.
I like the idea of lowering the voting age - I think kids do understand politics well before 18.
But what about my baby? Should he be able to vote? He loves pulling levers, pushing buttons, and manipulating cool-looking things in general. But he can't talk yet. We have no way of talking politics with him beyond posing him with Obama posters and watching politicians with him on TV. I guess it's true he likes watching Obama on TV, but that's a bit of a reach for determining his preference or even if he has one.
This is obviously an appeal to my children to make me buy your book, Matt. Nice try! On the other hand, I agree with you.
Tim: Yes, "there's a certain symmetry to achieving full membership in democracy along with its consequences at one time," but isn't there also an unjust asymmetry of allowing adults to make decisions with consequences so long-term that they will be dead before they're felt? That isn't a reason to deny older people the franchise, but I think your logic could be used to justify allowing voting ONLY for policies that you can feel the consequences of.
What about indoctrination? Kind of like what happens in Religion, a lot of kids get suckered into thinking a certain way and can't really decipher the truth until they get away from their parents. Not that I think the premise is bad. I think Children kind of get screwed when it comes to the older voting blocks voting against their best interest. But its another angle to consider. Might give a greater rise to the large family voting block like Catholics or Mormons.
In my experience, kids get their political views more from their peers than from their parents.
I also understand that people who turn 18 in an election year end up voting more often throughout their lives than kids who turn 18 the next year. I'm not sure what the implications of that fact are.
Korha -- what questions would go on a poll test and how would this not shut poor people out of the system more than they are even now? And how would this not seem like a throwback to Jim Crow laws?
Matt,
Don't be twit. What's your evidence that 50 year olds don't know anything? Which 50 years olds? I am at least 50 and I know a fair amount.
11 year olds don't get to vote because their brains aren't fully developed. They lack judgement and experience. That's why they are minors. 11 year olds generally don't pay taxes. In this country they don't fight in wars. There's a reason; they are children.
Maybe they'd turn off Spongebob once and awhile if they had to see "I'm John McCain and I approve this message" nonsense every 5 minutes.
Meaningless concept. Like Matt says, basically it would just make a whole new batch of stupid, uninformed, irrational voters.
While I am totally radical about giving children more rights, I don't see any value in this notion as a standalone.
I sympathize with the sentiment, but obviously the voting age will never be abolished.
However, having to be 18 prior to election day is quite arbitrary. I have a friend who turned 18 in late November 2004, our senior year of high school. So, he couldn't vote because he wasn't 18, even knowing he was quite informed.
So, personally, I think there needs to be voting age flexibility. Like if you're turning 18 within two years of election day or something, then you're good to go.
Obviously, the same problem of arbitrariness would persist, but that's inevitable.
Also, it is important to remember the rationale behind a voting age. It's about agency. By law, you have more agency as an 18 year old than you do when you're under 18. But that's also true at age 16, when you get your license to drive, and 21, when you're allowed to drink alcohol. Essentially, at age 18 you are expected to make decisions for yourself, and the problem with abolishing the voting age is essentially giving parents more votes based on the number of kids they have.
I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading. It's a democratic right to vote, and lame arguments about how it won't lead to the policies you want, or the average kid may be open to outside influences, do not override that. Everyone's open to outside influences, and lots of voters are dumb and irrational. It's simply much worse to NOT let some people vote (and their desires will be ignored) than it is to let some irrational people vote.
Unfortunately, this is America, where we don't let an entire city of almost a million people vote for congress or state government - because Washington DC would probably vote Democratic, and Republicans can stop this enfranchisement.
This stuff is BS. Everyone should get a vote absolute some compelling overwhelming reason not.
I also agree with the proposal, except for the bit about parents voting on behalf of their young children. It's normal for children's political beliefs to be influenced by their parents -- just like all of our beliefs are influenced by the people around us -- but letting parents cast their children's ballots is basically just giving them an extra vote.
Here's another reason for abolishing the voting age that hasn't been brought up: remember that whole "taxation without representation" thing? It still exists. Taking it literally, kids pay sales tax and user fees; taking it metaphorically, kids are expected to obey all the same laws as the rest of us, but they don't get a say in them. They're subjects, not citizens, and that is unacceptable in a democracy.
The discrepancy is partially addressed by having a separate juvenile justice system, with lighter sentences and records that are sealed at age 18. But that system is being eroded as more and more minors are tried as adults, and in any case, even a light sentence is unjust when you have no say in the law.
This is an unbelievably stupid idea.
- Without external input, children tend to reelect the current president.
- With external input, they'll probably vote like their parents. If they I had no idea of my parents' political preferences until I was in college and I'm glad for that. I don't want to reward parents who indoctrinate their children.
- Politicians pandering to children is a disgusting idea.
- As blogging should prove to everyone, politics is a massively stupid waste of time. Childhood should be directed toward other things.
Do you support voting for kids even given the following?
"In practice, this would strengthen the influence of families with lots of children. This would probably skew politics to the right a little, because conservative voters tend to have more kids than liberals. As a conservative, obviously, I tend to think this is a feature and not a bug. But more profoundly, everyday politics aside, is there a better metric of somebody’s trust in the future than how many kids they have? To decide to have a large family is to take a big stake in your country, to make a bet on its future."
One of the great ironies of the voting age is that people who just miss the cutoff--16/17 year olds--typically know a great deal more about American politics than the average 18+ year old, because they are currently taking or have recently taken HS courses on stuff most adults have long ago forgotten.
In general, my view is that if we're going to legally designate categories of citizens who have a weaker set of rights then standard citizens (childrens, convicted criminals, the clinically insane, etc), we have to offer a robust justification for each and every right we deny them. In all cases I mention, the justifications fore restricting the franchise are transparent failures. Fine, don't let them drive and force them to attend our stupid schools; we've got solid reasons for that. But not letting them walk in a booth and pull the lever once a year? I've yet to hear a compelling case. All decent arguments about the qualities of children could just as easily be applied to some class of adults, but no one ever proposes following through on that.
My point might be misconstrued.
As I said, I am radical about giving children far more capability than they have now, including the capability to "divorce" their parents, drink, have sex, anything else an adult does basically.
And we do NOT have "solid reasons" for forcing them to attend our crappy schools - that, in fact, is why they probably should not be allowed to vote, because our educational standards are so poor they can't possibly learn how to be intelligent voters, as the adult voters demonstrate every election.
I'm merely saying that as a proposal which stands alone without any other addressing of rights issues for children, this isn't particularly useful. The arguments against it from other points of view aren't valid.
However, the effect of doing this as a standalone policy WOULD indeed produce another bunch of poor voters which wouldn't change much on the national scene. And if it did, how fast would the laws be changed back to only allowing adults to vote?
Does anybody really believe that adults are going to allow this in the first place?
djw: here's the most compelling case I can make: abolition of the requirement that voters attain a certain age can mean one of two things: either we replace the voting age with a functional test--history, or current events, or civics, some such--or we allow infants and toddlers to vote. The latter is either facially preposterous or, more likely, a way to give parents extra votes, which is profoundly undemocratic. The former would almost certainly be as corrupt and unjust as...umm...it's always proven to be when various states used to do it to disenfranchise blacks--the alternative would be a massive, federal testing program, which would wind up being a significant hindrance to voting (and cost a hell of a lot) and still would be open to political tampering. It follows, then, that there must be an arbitrary voting age, that cuts off everyone below a certain age. Now, I'd support a proposal to lower that age to 16, and would consider lower ages...14? maybe. 10? seems like a bad idea to me, but it's possible to imagine evidence that would convince me. But if the alternatives are disenfranchising lots of voters, specially enfranchising people with many children, or arbitrarily picking a cut-off point, I think it's clearly the case that the latter is by far the most democratically acceptable.
Please, if we must lower the voting age, we should leave the minimum where it is and lower the maximum. When you take your first Social Security check, your name gets stricken from the rolls. As a geezer myself, I'd be happy to see my cohort disenfranchised--at least for this election.
what questions would go on a poll test
Mine would only have two.
1. True or False: The earth is more than 10,000 years old.
2. True or False: Cutting taxes to 0% will generate an infinite amount of government revenue.
Dan: the problem with your argument is this: If we ban voting under age X on empirical grounds (ie, these people tend to be unable to independently generate meaningful decisions on their own), we're applying a criteria we simply don't apply to adults, and we're not even applying it specifically. We're taking away the right to vote from some people because most people like them share a feature we don't care for about voters.
I never hear anyone talking about taking the franchise away from people with dementia, but allowing children to vote is facially absurd. This double standard needs better justification than I've seen in any of the debates on this.
Chris O: "Korha -- what questions would go on a poll test and how would this not shut poor people out of the system more than they are even now? And how would this not seem like a throwback to Jim Crow laws?"
Oh, it would totally shut out poor people, black people, brown people, and all other disadvantaged A functioning democracy depends on an engaged, educated, informed citizenry. minority groups. I'm envisioning a test of advanced political knowledge that
Right now an illiterate, insane, mentally retarded person can walk into a voting booth without even knowing the candidates' names and arbitrarily pull the lever--and yet that person's vote somehow counts just as much as mine. If that's the case, why not let little kids vote? Or convicted felons? Or illegal immigrants? Or people living in other countries? They could hardly be worse than that illiterate, insane, mentally retarded person. If you extend the logic of the progressive suffragists, anything short of absolute universal suffrage is an outright moral evil. Or, alternatively, we could look at the franchise as something to be earned, not given: not a universal human right, but a privilege granted to those who've demonstrated a minimum level of political awareness and rational agency.
A functioning democracy depends on an engaged, educated, informed citizenry. Yet instead of working to institute minimum standards for our electorate we have people in this thread advocating for the full enfranchisement of children starting from the moment of their birth. Is it possible to further dumb down our political culture? Yes, that's one way to do it--vote for me for President, and I'll buy all you kids an ice cream cone! Hail Senator Miley Cyrus, Governor Jesse Ventura! Oh wait, that last one already happened. This is like a bad dream and you people just want to make it worse. Appalling.
Part of post that got cut off:
Oh, it would totally shut out poor people, black people, brown people, and all other disadvantaged A functioning democracy depends on an engaged, educated, informed citizenry. minority groups. I'm envisioning a test of advanced political knowledge that less than 5% of the population could conceivably pass, in effect restricting the franchise to rich and educated elites. These deserving elites can then indefinitely perpetuate their elite status via control of the government--though of course they got to be careful, lest they be overthrown by a mass proletarian revolution of starving poor oppressed people.
Right now an illiterate, insane, mentally retarded person can walk into a voting booth without even knowing the candidates' names and arbitrarily pull the lever--and yet that person's vote somehow counts just as much as mine. If that's the case, why not let little kids vote? Or convicted felons? Or illegal immigrants? Or people living in other countries? They could hardly be worse than that illiterate, insane, mentally retarded person. If you extend the logic of the progressive suffragists, anything short of absolute universal suffrage is an outright moral evil. Or, alternatively, we could look at the franchise as something to be earned, not given: not a universal human right, but a privilege granted to those who've demonstrated a minimum level of political awareness and rational agency.
A functioning democracy depends on an engaged, educated, informed citizenry. Yet instead of working to institute minimum standards for our electorate we have people in this thread advocating for the full enfranchisement of children starting from the moment of their birth. Is it possible to further dumb down our political culture? Yes, that's one way to do it--vote for me for President, and I'll buy all you kids an ice cream cone! Hail Senator Miley Cyrus, Governor Jesse Ventura! Oh wait, that last one already happened. This is like a bad dream and you people just want to make it worse. Appalling.
"A functioning democracy depends on an engaged, educated, informed citizenry."
Which is why there are very few, if any, functioning democracies on the planet.
Including this one.
I firmly reject the idea that with age comes wisdom. Sometimes it does, but if one is not inclined to wisdom then with age comes getting good at being stupid.
The amusing thing about such a discussion is that it points up the fundamental problem of "voting": the fact that all the voters are already disenfranchised because they are presented with a specified list of "acceptable" candidates, all of whom are already guaranteed to insure that the status quo continues.
As we anarchists say, "If voting could change the system, it would be illegal" and "No matter who you vote for, the government gets in power."
If you want to allow everyone to vote who is CAPABLE of voting, than by definition anyone who can understand the notion of voting should be allowed to vote. That means any person able to comprehend the notion, which can include kids down to maybe age five or six, but not infants, plus insane people, retarded people, totally ignorant people, etc.
But if you go beyond that, then you have to come up with a criteria for who should be allowed to vote. Age is irrelevant, for the preceding reason. So age is an arbitrary exclusion, done for social reasons and for reasons that the young are more likely to demand change in the status quo than older persons.
And once you start setting down rational criteria for who should be allowed to vote, you run into the simple fact that vast numbers of your existing voters don't qualify. Maybe the majority.
Does anybody here think that the thirty percent of morons who STILL support George Bush and the war in Iraq are a problem? I suspect you do. Is it a problem that Bush attacks Iran, and that number jumps to fifty one percent, as it is likely to do in that eventuality? I think so.
You can't have it both ways - either you restrict voters by some arbitrary and/or political criteria, or you let anyone vote whether they are "qualified" or not.
This exposes the entire farce of "democracy" which in turn exposes the farce of the state at its root.
Very few populations in history, if any, have ever "controlled" their states by voting. At best they are allowed the illusion of doing so, while the iron hand of power does the actual controlling behind the scenes, or openly in the case of dictatorships where the illusion of citizen control is ignored.
Anybody who thinks this election - whether Obama wins or not - or any other is going to significantly alter the course of this country is seriously deluded.
I can already hear the talk radio people replacing their complaints about stereotyped "welfare queens" with "vote-stuffing queens."
But seriously, given that children would tend to vote with their parents anyway, I'm not convinced that this would actually create a more forward-looking system of governance (which seemed to be the original point of this thought experiment). How many of the children, who in real life largely aren't as precocious as that West Wing kid, will actually be thinking that far into the future? I was quite a smart and reflective (and politically aware) kid, and I often had a hard time thinking beyond what school was going to be like next year, much less what macroeconomic conditions our government was shaping for fifty years into the future.
As for the political balance, I think it'd be close to a wash. After all, how many people don't vote already? Kids would probably vote at an even lower rate. And yes, conservatives have more kids, but younger voters, when they vote, tend to be more liberal; get them voting at age ten, then they'll probably be voting in greater numbers than they currently do by the time they get to college, so the increased voting of the more liberal 18-30 range might just balance out an increased voting of the likely more conservative 0-18 range.
I don't have a real opinion on completely abolishing the voting age, although I feel that younger kids are WAY more informed than we give them credit for being. I have always wondered why a youth that works and contributes a portion of his or her earned wages to state and federal taxes is not allowed a voice on how these wages are used.
"kids are expected to obey all the same laws as the rest of us, but they don't get a say in them. They're subjects, not citizens, and that is unacceptable in a democracy."
I agree completely. There's no way they should be forced or intimidated to clean their rooms or eat vetegables, let alone be taxed, without their consent. And absolutely no forced lawn-mowing.
I just realized that about half of MY's blog commenters are likely 16 years olds who all know that after their 10-grade government class they're way more informed than most of the old farts out there.
Apparently this post is not a joke. It should be.
"I guess this is probably the logical consequence of maintaining that voting is the universal human right of all citizens in our society"
No, it's not! There is a fairly sensible distinction between relevant differences and irrelevant differences with respect to rights. Black and white, man and woman, smart and dumb, are irrelevant differences. Vegetative state versus full-function, imprisoned felon versus non-imprisoned non-felon, undocumented immigrant versus resident citizen, illiterate pants-crapper versus grown adult are all differences that are perfectly relevant to voting rights.
Perhaps the political discourse and political system wouldn't get any worse if infants voted. But then again it could just an easily lead to an abandonment of the whole idea of civic virtue and reponsibility. Toddlers are illiterate...but 50-year olds are uninformed! Kindergarteners' votes are almost completely determined by their parent's preferences...but aren't we all determined by the metanarratives in which we live!?
Do this, and you're just, in effect, giving parents yet more disproportionate power in our society. No, thank you.
As this under-18's US History class has explained, America has certain values and principles (like one person one vote) that it fails to live up to. It's one reason to keep changing this country.
This thought experiment recalls the argument among our founding fathers, the conflict between elitism (that's what it's called, when we make an argument that the franchise should be restricted to "informed" voters), and a relentless extension of suffrage beyond the point where many feel comfortable, as has been the case many times in our history. It has a downside (who remembers Jackson's presidency of the "common man", with its outright disregard for the supreme court?), but it's what happens when we stick to principle.
Hector observes
You realize that lowering the voting age is going to move American politics towards the right?
I assumed that Matthew did not realize this. On the contrary, I assumed that what lies behind his 'proposal' is a belief that kids would lean dispr. towards (D)s because their parents, at least parents like the type of people he knows, (and others? like teachers?), would be able push them in that direction.
But maybe I'm just too cynical.
Personally I go the other way: only landed gentry should have the franchise. ;-)
I think we should give computers the vote. But only Macs.
I was just thinking about this the other day. The only problem I see with it is not whether or not children are capable of being informed. The problem is that it would open up the possibility of using children as political tools. Just imagine a mother suggesting that a trip to the ice cream store or to a movie was obtainable in exchange for voting this way or that way. And don't act like you don't think that would happen. It seems a little unfair to expect a child to appreciate the significance of voting or what results from voting. But its an interesting thought.
I was just thinking about this the other day. The only problem I see with it is not whether or not children are capable of being informed. The problem is that it would open up the possibility of using children as political tools. Just imagine a mother suggesting that a trip to the ice cream store or to a movie was obtainable in exchange for voting this way or that way. And don't act like you don't think that would happen. It seems a little unfair to expect a child to appreciate the significance of voting or what results from voting. But its an interesting thought.
djw; I didn't say allowing children to vote is facially absurd (and don't believe it). I believe that allowing infants and toddlers to vote is; if nothing else (and there's a lot else), someone without language skills or a notion of, say, what a President is simply adds nothing to governance (except that, as I and others keep noting, it's really just a way to give parents extra votes, just as the 3/5 compromise wasn't about giving slaves 3/5ths of a vote). And there's a huge difference between allowing a particular individual without an idea of the presidency, if there is such an (adult) person, to vote, and allowing an entire class of people who are utterly and demonstrably unable to form an idea of what the presidency is (by virtue, e.g., of the fact that they have not yet learned to comprehend language) to vote.
I don't talk about the other side of the equation--functional tests for adults--because frankly I don't have the slightest idea what the various states do about, say, people in a vegetative state. I think illiterates should certainly be able to vote, and are, and do (although not in the numbers I'd like to see), but there's a huge difference between someone who does not know how to read but has found a way to function in society as a citizen and someone who hasn't figured out what language is yet. As for the insane, my assumption is that they can vote, but that we assume their votes a) will be a miniscule fraction of the electorate, and b) will tend to be a wash. Since neither candidate in the general election is likely to take a position on the controversial issue of whether the government should continue to send mind-control messages to certain people through their dental fillings, I would assume that the single-issue voters voting on that basis will be more or less split. In any case, I'm not sufficiently worried about their impact on the election to restructure our electoral system to minimize it.
and anyway, remember, I'm not proposing a functional test at all. I'm saying that as a practical matter there are only three alternatives: 1) we can have an unlimited franchise, in which case as a practical matter we are specially overenfranchising parents, 2) we can require some sort of test and pray that for the first time in human history it does not wind up disenfranchising the already disadvantaged, or 3) we can pick an arbitrary standard that discriminates equally against all classes, races, interest groups, etc, and that, while necessarily overinclusive, prevents from voting a large, easily identified class of people literally incapable of forming thoughts about government.
the strongest answer to this argument, I'm convinced, is that children, perhaps in part by virtue of being disenfranchised, are a disadvantaged class. I buy this, to a certain extent, which is why I would absolutely favor lowering the voting age to 16, and on reflection would probably favor lowering it to 14--but there are several institutional checks on discrimination against the young, the biggest being that it will be a very short time before someone capable of forming political opinions is capable of performing the democratic task of tossing out the bums who enact policies they disagree with. Depending on what state she's in, a 15 year old outraged by a position of Senator X may well get to vote against Senator X before my next opportunity to vote against one of my senators. In any case, I think it's a lot easier to argue that teenagers are a disadvantaged class than to argue that infants and toddlers are.
to reiterate: any functional test is almost certain to lead to terrible results. no test at all will lead to terrible results. an arbitrary test is the least bad solution (although of course it should be as narrowly-tailored as possible)
> You realize that lowering the voting age is
> going to move American politics towards the right?
>
> Minor children, one presumes, will vote largely
> under the influence of their parents.
Interesting ancedata point: our local elementary school holds a primary and general election each election year, with all grades voting (and voting for both parties in the primary). As noted this normally results in a vote distribution mirroring the parents', which in our purple town should be the most conservative Dem and the least radical Republican. So this year that should have resulted in Clinton 55 followed by perhaps Richardson and Edwards on the Democratic side. Instead the kids went Obama 80-20 across all grade levels (our town is 95% white middle class but we have about 10% transfer students from a nearby urban district who are mostly black).
Cranky
What about the unborn? They have rights protected under the constitution, so I say fetuses should get the ballot. In fact, I saw a billboard in rural Ohio that read, "9 out of 10 of the unborn want the illegals OUT!" I'm not sure who they would vote for this time around, but I'm sure their newly-formed fingernails are eager to pull on some hanging chads.
Ummm. ABOLISH the voting age. Seriously?
The most obvious problem with this is that if you look at the original proposal in the link, the author supports allowing parents the right to vote in the name of their infants and toddlers until said infants and toddlers reach the point where they can go in and pull the lever themselves. Allowing someone to have an extra vote in the name of another individual whose true preferences have no weight in the voter's decision and, indeed, cannot really even be known at all (I suppose we could see if Junior smiles more when Obama ads come onto the television vs. McCain ads, but somehow I don't think this produces an entirely accurate assessment), is not an improvement of the franchise but profoundly undemocratic. The effect would be to create a class of super-voters who, instead of simply getting one chance to voice their own opinion like everybody else, become entitled to speak for themselves AND their dependents.
As numerous other posters have pointed out, even after children reach an age where they can read the names off the ballot and pull a lever themselves, giving them the vote will simply lead to a more subtle form of the phenomenon above. If you are entirely dependent on another individual for food, clothing, and shelter, not to mention whether you can go play with your friends or get to eat dessert or when you have to go to bed at night, the chances of your making an independent decision about which lever to pull at the ballot box are slim. Beyond that, along with the parents' authority over the child comes a monopoly of information. At the very least until the teen years, parents, by constantly presenting a certain point of view in the house can exercise an influence on their child's mindset greater than anything the kid sees on television or hears at school; in fact they can color the way the kid interprets what he/she learns from other sources. When I was growing up my parents carefully taught me about politics ... by putting Rush Limbaugh on the radio and explaining that Republicans are the party of family and freedom, while Democrats want to take all your money and create a wicked nanny state (in condensed form, that we should all be happy when the R's win, a bit like rooting for the home baseball team). Now that I've had more time/opportunities to independently seek out and examine more, ahem, objective information sources, I'm a left-leaning moderate who thinks Limbaugh is an arrogant blowhard. "Brilliant," you think, "have you also by any chance discovered that the sun rises in the east?" Yes, quite right. But how many eight-year-olds, when living in an environment where the authority figures who control their lives constantly barrage them with a single point of view and present only that side of the argument, are going to seriously challenge that parental perspective? Yes, it would be lovely if parents just sat their kids down with a copy of Newsweek, read through it with them, gave a mini civics lesson on competing goods and the dilemma of freedom and equality, and then said OK honey, what do you think? But if you believe most parents are going to do this and nothing else, I have a bridge to sell you.
Even with a voting age of 18, of course, you still get a fair share of voters who simply stick with the point of view held by those around them or that represents the culture they grew up in. But you have much, MUCH better odds that voters have at least been exposed to multiple information sources, have had a basic education that will encourage critical thinking, and have mentally developed to the point where "candidate X has a policy plan that will provide for the future of this country's (defense, health care system, social security, take your pick)" or "candidate X will pass laws that will advance my personal values in society (whether these be conservative or liberal)" sounds like a much better argument than "Mommy said so." Compared to some ideal civic state where everyone has had a great education, all voters are perfectly informed, and all voting decisions are made by a careful process of calculation, of course the reasons why people in practice approve of candidate X's plans for defense, health care, or social security may often still seem depressingly weak; their values may strike us as wrongheaded. But at least there is some basic form of independent thought involved, which is an improvement compared to the reasoning of your average eight-year-old.
As to fairness, I really don't think you can consider a voting age to be a denial of equality in the sense that, for instance, voting restrictions based on sex or race would be. This is for the very simple reason that everyone in the country goes through the condition of being a child, and everyone also passes through that condition and gains their rights as a citizen. If you are the exception to the rule above - that is, if you are a precocious eleven-year-old with strong, well-reasoned political opinions - you are not stuck in a position where either the voting laws change or your opinions will permanently go to waste. You simply have to wait seven years, during which time you can still be involved through political activism, get-out-the-vote drives etc. If the opinions are genuinely yours, and genuinely well thought-through, presumably you will still hold them in seven years, and will at that point have the opportunity to express them with a vote like everybody else. I don't think that requiring a bit of patience in this scenario in order to ensure that people ARE voting their own opinions is really too much to ask. The effect is not to create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised people, it's simply that everyone is expected to go through a growing phase before they take their place as a full member of society. The law reflects this expectation in plenty of other ways. Would you support abolishing child labor laws? Allowing children to enlist in the military? Permitting children of any age to buy cigarettes? What about child support, or extra welfare payments for women with children? Mightn't some children be particularly mature, and able to take care of themselves and make their own decisions?
Well, beyond a certain age some might, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that as a rule, most don't - so you have a choice between requiring a bit of extra patience from that minority or coming up with laws that ill suit the majority. Hence the idea of treating everyone, regardless of age, exactly the same under the law, falls flat on its face in practice unless you really believe that eight-year-olds as a group don't need some protections of a different nature than those we grant to twenty-year olds. If our laws don't assume that kids are wise enough to weigh the costs and benefits of smoking vs. getting lung cancer, why on earth should we assume that they're wise enough to pick the country's leaders?
Please don't ignore that brains mature alongside the rest of the body.
A ten year old is just beginning to form abstract thoughts... A fifteen year old brain is not yet adult either ... So the uninformed ten-year-old is not the equivalent of an uninformed fifty year old ...
I couldn't disagree with your notion more.
Brooksfoe: "I think we should give computers the vote. But only Macs."
Hey, Linux requires deep knowledge of the OS and the hardware! So they're the most informed computers around!
Their users - not so much. But compared to Windows mouse monkeys, there's no comparison. I say disenfranchise all Windows users!
Jackifus: "A fifteen year old brain is not yet adult either."
Citation, please. One that doesn't quote psychology pseudoscience, but actual biological facts that establish a fifteen-year-old provided with the same facts as an adult cannot conceptualize as well. Otherwise, you're talking out your ass.
And we're not talking about "experience" here since that's another slippery slope. We're talking fundamental brain capability to do reasoning.
We could also give corporations the right to vote. I mean, they DO act like children.
Conservatives might like this, but watch their heads explode when they realize that it would give immigrants, including illegals, proxy votes for their citizen babies. (In fact, one possible very bad consequence would be a revived campaign to revoke birthright citizenship for children of illegals.)
@Colatina:
I agree completely. There's no way they should be forced or intimidated to clean their rooms or eat vetegables, let alone be taxed, without their consent. And absolutely no forced lawn-mowing.Your sarcasm is misplaced and inappropriate. We both know that parental rights are not the issue here.
If a person is going to be denied representation in the government, then he shouldn't be subject to the government's rules. That's one of the basic principles this country was founded on.
@Slightly Bemused:
Even with a voting age of 18, of course, you still get a fair share of voters who simply stick with the point of view held by those around them [...] But you have much, MUCH better odds that voters have at least been exposed to multiple information sources [etc.]Well, by that logic, shouldn't we raise the voting age as high as it can possibly go? If an 18 year old is more likely to have been exposed to multiple information sources than a 16 year old, then isn't it obvious that a 30 year old is even more likely, and a 65 year old is more likely still? Perhaps no one should be allowed to vote until they're on their deathbeds.
As to fairness, I really don't think you can consider a voting age to be a denial of equality [...] for the very simple reason that everyone in the country goes through the condition of being a child [...] if you are a precocious eleven-year-old with strong, well-reasoned political opinions [... you] simply have to wait seven yearsSo adults don't have to wait, but children do... and you're saying that's fair?
Just because everyone goes through the same period of discrimination doesn't make it acceptable.
If the opinions are genuinely yours, and genuinely well thought-through, presumably you will still hold them in seven years, and will at that point have the opportunity to express them with a vote like everybody else. I don't think that requiring a bit of patience in this scenario in order to ensure that people ARE voting their own opinions is really too much to ask.But there are two major problems with that:
1. In the intervening seven years, damage may have been done that your vote may have helped avoid. This is like saying "Democrats should stay home this election, and if they really think Obama/Clinton is such a great candidate, they can vote for him/her in 2012 instead." There are things that need to be addressed now, not seven or even four years from now.
2. As others have repeatedly pointed out, denying minors the vote doesn't "ensure" anything. Adults still base their votes on opinions that aren't "their own" - opinions they get from talk radio, pastors, blogs, friends, and so on. The best you can do is hope to raise the odds that a voter will have had time to consider various sources, and as I wrote above, that logic dictates that the voting age should be raised to infinity.
The effect is not to create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised people, it's simply that everyone is expected to go through a growing phase before they take their place as a full member of society.
On the contrary, the effect is to create a permanent underclass: it's just that the membership of that underclass is constantly changing. Denying minors the vote leads to all sorts of discriminatory laws targeting minors, and it's a small comfort that every year, some minors become adults and cease to be affected by those laws (as new minors are born to replace them).
Would you support abolishing child labor laws? Allowing children to enlist in the military? Permitting children of any age to buy cigarettes? What about child support, or extra welfare payments for women with children? Mightn't some children be particularly mature, and able to take care of themselves and make their own decisions?Those are all important questions, and I'd expect us to have to face some hard discussions about them if minors were given the vote.
Well, beyond a certain age some might, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that as a rule, most don'tWell, I think it is unreasonable to assume that. There's nothing magical about the number 18: if most 18 year olds are able to take care of themselves, I'm pretty sure most 17 year olds are too.
@jackifus:
A ten year old is just beginning to form abstract thoughts... A fifteen year old brain is not yet adult either ... So the uninformed ten-year-old is not the equivalent of an uninformed fifty year oldSimilarly, a sexist might look at the differences between the male and female brains and conclude that women must be incapable of considering issues the same way as men, and therefore shouldn't be allowed to vote.
But most of us realize how silly that is. Once you get past a very basic level, the biological differences just aren't relevant to forming coherent thoughts and desires. In other words, it doesn't matter whether their brains are physically "equivalent", as long as they can perform the same function.
Comments closed May 24, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
I agree. I was almost arrested for voting fraud in my wayward youth when I tried to vote for Clinton at age 15. My own mother turned me in when she went to vote and saw my name on the list of eligible voters.
Posted by justaguy | May 10, 2008 6:36 PM