On March 23, 1971, the 26th Amendment was passed, lowering the national voting age from 21 to 18. It came about as a response to the fact that young people could be drafted but couldn't vote. Today, we face different challenges and a wide variety of social injustices. Lurking not far in the background is the disenfranchisement of smart, mature human beings that should have more of a say about things that directly affect them now, not later.
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I'll get right down to my proposal: the voting age should be lowered to 13. Uncomfortable? Good. You should be. When you have a belief that you haven't taken the time to question, and somebody challenges you to sit down and think about the rational justifications for that belief (if any), discomfort is par of the course. This essay will consist of three parts. First, I'm going to try to anticipate your objections to lowering the voting age and dispense with them. Then, I'm going to lay out my reasons. And third, I'm going to deliver on my promise in the above intro and show how the disenfranchisement of youth is in fact directly connected to other forms of inequality that persist in our society.
Part A: The Straw Men
Here are the typical objections that I hear to lowering the voting age.
A1. Have you met any teenagers?!
As a matter of fact, I have. I was thirteen for a whole year. During that time I and my peers were politically aware, were engaged in our social studies classes, argued, and were more than capable of thinking for ourselves.
A2. Kids will vote just like their parents.
Putting aside the fact that calling them "kids" kind of begs the question -- I'll illustrate later on how they're more mature than you think -- there's really scant evidence to support the claim that they'll "vote just like their parents" any more than should be expected by virtue of the fact that their interests are aligned anyway. I vote like my parents, for the most part, because they were successful in imparting their values to me, helped teach me to think, and because our interests are more or less aligned by virtue of our continued familial bond. Besides, if getting your views from someone else disqualified one from voting, what of adults who get a steady diet of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh? How is that really any different?
In a certain sense, kids already do vote just like their parents from the day they're born. More precisely, their "vote" can be thought of as a weighted average of the votes in their electoral district -- by virtue of the way we set up our system of proportional representation based on a decennial census. Allowing teenagers to vote for themselves can only improve this state of affairs.
A3. Teenagers lack the mental capacity to vote, because their brains aren't fully developed.
Riiight. How far do we want to take this? Are we really going to go there? Are you suggesting we bring back literacy tests? Should everyone be subjected to neurological screenings, before getting to vote? Should people with varying degrees of mental retardation be disenfranchised? What about the elderly? The fact is, there are plenty of smart teens and stupid adults.
A4. Eek! Slippery slope! Dangerous precedent!
In other words, if we make the voting age 13...what next? I'm always amused by this sort of illogic. I remember it being listed as an "informal fallacy" in my freshman logic class. The problem with these sorts of concerns is simple. Ask yourself: how likely is it that we're going to think for ourselves exactly one more time, and having set a "dangerous precedent" immediately turn back into mindless automata incapable of stopping a runaway train? Is that really plausible? In essence, by voicing that concern you're implying that everyone else has the same rigidity, inability to think critically and independently, and blinkered adherence to a perceived status quo that you have. Kind of insulting, don't you think?
A5. It's not really disenfranchisement; they'll be able to vote eventually.
Well, for starters, not all of them will. Some teens die early. These are mature, thinking human beings who never get any say at all. Think about that. But on another level, we're different people every day, every year. Our needs and interests change. Conflicts and concerns are different for an old fart like me than they are for a teenager. I'm going to elaborate on this in the next section.
Part B: Why Teens Should be Allowed to Vote
B1. Teenagers pay taxes.
They pay sales tax. If they work, they may very well pay state and federal income tax. And yet, they can't vote. That's taxation without representation.
B2. Teenagers make pivotal decisions that will impact them the rest of their lives.
Whether and where to go to school; whether to work; whether to get financial aid; whether to sign up for military service. To name a few. Many of these decisions are directly related to policies that they have no say in, such as school vouchers, whether the military should be allowed to recruit in high schools, whether teenagers should get parental consent to terminate pregnancies, and a whole host of other issues.
B3. Teens can be and often are tried as adults.
Do I need to elaborate on this one? Does this seem fair to you?
Part C: Why This is Your Fight, Too
C1. Teenager disenfranchisement is African American disenfranchisement.
African Americans make up 12% of the population at large, but over 14% percent of the 13-17 age cohort. In other words, having the voting age set at 18 makes African Americans even more of a minority than they already are.
C2. Teenager disenfranchisement is working poor disenfranchisement.
Many working adults, especially in cities, have a hard time making it polls. At the same time, many polling stations are located in schools. By allowing teens to vote, we could mitigate this problem somewhat by virtue of the fact that their kids, who have somewhat similar interests and values, would be able to vote.
C3. You should care about this if you care about restoring civic values.
Many of us, when we take social studies and history, don't see the immediate relevance of these lessons to our lives. What better way to make it matter than by listening -- really listening -- to what these humans have to say?
C4. You should care about this if you care about a woman's right to choose.
Think about all the draconian "parental consent" restrictions on teenagers who get pregnant. Would these stand a chance if those same teenagers were given the right to vote? I have to believe it would help.
This concludes my screed. My dad describes me as an "intellectual blunderbuss." I fire all over the place, and sometimes one of my bullets meets its target. Maybe this will be one of those times, and maybe not. But I really needed to get this out of my system, and in any case it's just a bloody diary.
In any case, I welcome your feedback, I'm not afraid of criticism, I'm willing to take a risk and be epically wrong. For my own edification and quality control, using dad's blunderbuss metaphor, I've included a poll.