Vote Down

Writing at Vox, Kelsey Piper apparently believes she has made the case for removing the age restriction on voting entirely. According to her piece, anyone who can be taught the concept of voting and who is physically capable of casting a ballot should be allowed to do so. She hasn't made the case at all, of course, because she fails to note the elephant in the room: Kids don't know what they're doing.

She notes that such an objection overlooks the reality that there are a lot of people who vote who don't know what they're doing -- and you can pick just about any election you want to as proof. But that's not really a reason to extend the franchise to the Santa-comes-down-the-chimney set as much as it is a reason to remove it from some others. But that's wrong.

Sure, if we wanted an informed and intelligent electorate we would prune the rolls of somewhere north of 50% of registered voters -- even though many of the uninformed and less intelligent remove themselves from the rolls by either not registering or not voting if they do. The Vox piece gives us a good place to start, in fact. But we have, in our nation, said that people who are 18 years of age can make a rational decision to put themselves in harm's way for the benefit of that nation and its people. If they are allowed to do that, then they get to vote in elections, even if they don't often exercise that right and they may choose poorly. Which leaves us without a rational reason to ratchet the age back up to where we might be better served by our voters and their choices.

Could some 12-year-olds make more responsible decisions as voters than do people twice, three, four or more times their age? Of course! But not enough of them to risk that the rest might also persuade Mom or Dad to drive them to the polls and vote Ariana Grande into the White House. Show me a 12-year-old who would make a great voting citizen today and I will show you one who would make an even better voting citizen in six years. Show me a 12-year-old who would make a lousy voting citizen today and we've got six years to either fix it or subtly persuade that person to join the ranks of the non-voters. Both next year's Democratic primaries and the November general election should put us way ahead of the curve in convincing them.