WaPo Editorial Urges Giving Children the Right to Vote

Why not? We already let dead people and cartoon characters vote.

10.28.2016

A Washington Post op-ed today puts forward the apparently serious argument that children 13 or even younger should be given the right to vote, signaling that the Post has officially lost its damn mind.

Speechwriter Laurence Pevsner writes in "Let Children Vote. Even 13-Year-Olds" that we should allow young people to have a say in the decisions that affect them.

He asserted that the arguments being used to prevent children from voting are the same that once were used to prevent women and blacks from voting -- namely, that women would only vote the way their husbands voted, or that blacks were intellectually incapable of understanding the issues.

In fact, nearly every objection one could have to children’s suffrage has been thoroughly rejected as a reason to deny anyone else the right to vote. Consider that many adults can’t or don’t follow complex policy issues, or don’t care enough to vote. Even in heated presidential elections, hardly more than half of eligible voters go to the polls. But we’d consider it undemocratic to deny citizens the right to vote based on presumed ignorance or actual disuse. We may discount the opinions of people who think NASA faked the moon landing, but we still count their ballots — and most Americans would agree it’s important that we do.

"A child is a person, too," Pevsner declared. Yes, a child is a person, too -- an argument that progressives conveniently ignore when the issue is abortion. But the point of setting an age limit for voting, which Pevsner acknowledges, is that a child has neither the maturity nor civic and political education to be entrusted with making decisions that affect the lives of all. Of course, one could easily argue that many (if not most) adults also have neither the maturity nor civic and political education to be entrusted with such decisions; but that is not an argument to allow more uninformed voters into the process. It is only an argument for improving the education and wisdom of voting adults.

Pevsner also argues that children’s suffrage "serves our long-term future because politicians are incentivized by their constituents. The best way to move the needle on the issues that will affect young people, like climate change and college affordability, is to give them a voice and a vote. That’s how our system is designed to work." Again, unlike the women and blacks who once were unfairly denied the right to vote, children generally don't have the life experience and intellectual capacity to have a say even on issues that will affect their future. That's what adults are for.

"Giving young people the vote isn’t just the right thing to do," concludes Pevsner, after not having demonstrated that it isthe right thing to do, "it’s also the best way to ensure our democratic future is strong... [T]he answer to our deteriorating political institutions isn’t less democracy — it’s more... And studies show that the younger you are when cast your first vote, the more likely you are to make it a regular habit."

Maintaining an age limit is not "less democracy" -- it is a commonsense measure to at least partially ensure that democracy is upheld by adults who understand the consequences of their vote.