Voting from birth?

[jducoeur]

This morning on the BBC, there was an interview with a group in Germany that are campaigning to lower the voting age to -- well, birth, basically. The idea would be to allow kids to vote as soon as they felt themselves competent. Looking around on the Web, I find that the idea has been around for a few years.

My initial reaction was that this was amusing, but rather goofy -- that it's entirely ridiculous on its face. And yet, there is a part of me that rages against the growing infantilization of how modern society treats kids (and, indeed, adults), and a feeling that we do ourselves a damage by not teaching them real responsibility at a young age. The right to vote is the most serious responsibility we give to our citizens: important, and not trivial to do well. Humans learn best by doing, and I do wonder if the best way to teach people that voting is important, and should be taken seriously, is to let them actually *do* it from youth.

So I find myself of curiously mixed minds here. Part of me thinks the idea is fairly preposterous, and would dumb government down. Another part of me thinks that it could, instead, smarten our citizens up. Really, I suspect that a mix of the two would be true. Opinions?

Comments

[jimpage363.livejournal.com]

I don't think children should vote in governmental elections.

I think I have become more conservative as I have aged. Also, I spend a lot of time with kids. Developmentally, they are not able to understand historical context before the age of 12. (Of course, you could argue that a lot of adults don't consider historical context before they vote, either.) They tend to be very black and white about issues until about age 8 or so, but those decisions are strongly based on the opinions of parents and then peers.

My knee-jerk reaction is also based on what has happened in advertising. As the market aims more and more at a younger demographic, we see a real unraveling of culture and social mores based on giving precedence to age (and presumably, age-based wisdom). We see sexuality being encouraged at a younger and younger age without the accompanying sense of responsibility and acceptance of consequences. Translate that to politics and one becomes very nervous, indeed.

Besides, I would like some benefits reserved for adulthood. There really are differences between adults and children and I have no problem with dictating what I think is best for children who have not yet got the intellectual capability or life experience to determine their own courses.

I agree entirely about teaching the kids to be more responsible so that they go through the motions of democracy. But I don't think we ought to give them full free rein. After all, we don't hand them a grocery list and the credit card and send them off to market. They play "grocery" until they have the concepts of buying, selling and choosing. Why not play "democracy" until they have the concepts down and are ready to assume adult responsibility in that sphere?

[jducoeur]

After all, we don't hand them a grocery list and the credit card and send them off to market. They play "grocery" until they have the concepts of buying, selling and choosing. Why not play "democracy" until they have the concepts down and are ready to assume adult responsibility in that sphere?

The question is, is this self-defeating? Most people do *not* really understand the concepts of buying and selling especially well. Is that because of fundamental inability, or is it because we didn't demand the skill of them at an appropriate age?

Mind, I'm not agreeing with the original proponents of this idea, who would have three-year-olds voting. But a 15-year-old? I'm of *very* mixed minds here, and I think it's overly simplistic to say that they simply aren't capable of it.

One thing I've observed in the SCA (not having kids, but watching a bunch from birth through college) is that the best way to get a kid to grow up to be a responsible adult is to give them appropriate responsibility early. Not excessively early -- but generally a lot earlier than modern society tends to do. Not only do most succeed, but they tend to take those responsibilities much more seriously than the average person who isn't granted them until adulthood...

[jimpage363.livejournal.com]

One thing I've observed in the SCA (not having kids, but watching a bunch from birth through college) is that the best way to get a kid to grow up to be a responsible adult is to give them appropriate responsibility early.

Agreed. But what constitutes appropriate responsibility in this case? There are duties to being a voting member of our society that I am not willing to require of youngsters - paying taxes is a major one.

I think that changing the voting age would also adjust the age for juvenile crime, another knotty issue.

Here is another question for you... what rights should legal minors have and what should be reserved for legal adults?

[siderea]

There are duties to being a voting member of our society that I am not willing to require of youngsters - paying taxes is a major one.

Woah. Which country are you writing from? Here in the US, kids pay taxes just like adults. Their income is non-exempt, they pay sales tax at cash registers, and if, somehow, they come to own real estate or cars, they pay real estate and excise taxes.

[jducoeur]

Well, many of the ones that are currently restricted are ones that I consider deeply goofy. For instance, I consider American drinking laws downright harmful: they preach a black-and-white attitude instead of a much more sensible sort of moderation. That's emblematic of, as I said, the infantilization of modern society. We don't teach responsibility, we teach "allowed" or not. That's foolish at *all* levels, no less for minors than anyone else...

[siderea]

Besides, I would like some benefits reserved for adulthood.

I'd like some benefits reserved for women/whites/under-40-year-olds. What say we disenfranchise men/people-of-color/the-elderly so me and mine can enjoy having special privileges?

Arguments that giving kids the vote would be bad for our democracy is one thing; arguments that adults are entitled to arrogate to themselves privileges Just Because are something else again.

[jimpage363.livejournal.com]

Arguments that giving kids the vote would be bad for our democracy is one thing; arguments that adults are entitled to arrogate to themselves privileges Just Because are something else again.


***

Well, why not? I tend to agree that reserving rights for one group over another is usually a Bad Thing. In fact, the movement in Germany actually does seem to be based on age-ist principles, if you will - the younger folks and families are upset at how much money is going to pensioners.

But I have honestly tried to consider why children should be given the franchise along with adults. I am not claiming that children be disenfranchised as a voting block - they have never had the right to vote. They have more rights and protections now than at any other time in recorded history.

Of course, if I substitute the word "black" for the word "children" (or any other minority group, then it begins to sound suspiciously bigoted. However, there is a reason parents have control over their children until they become legal adults and it is not abitrary nor an attempt to disenfranchise a large group.

Do you honestly think it would be a good thing for kids (ages 5 - 15) to vote? Run for office? Decide national policy? I ask from a real sense of curiosity and because I am trying to sort out my own thinking on the subject.

[siderea]

Do you honestly think it would be a good thing for kids (ages 5 - 15) to vote?

Do you think, then, it's a no-brainer that kids 16-17 should be allowed to vote? Because right now, though many of them (depending on state of residence) are legal to marry, they may not vote.

Cause if you grant 16 year olds are mature enough to vote... er, well which 16 year olds? It's a well documented phenomenon that girls develop cognitively earlier than boys do, through youth/adolescence. Doesn't it make more sense to allow people of a certain developmental attainment vote? In which case, if we're talking about 16 year old boys, that means, IIRC, 14 year old girls, and if we're talking 16 year old girls, that means 18 year old boys.

For that matter, the diversity of development is pretty extreme. If through rigorous confirmed social science research we learn 40% of 15 year old girls are developmentally prepared (however we might define that) to take on the responsibility of stewarding our democracy, does that mean that it's OK for that 40% to be disenfranchised because the other 60% isn't developmentally ready? That's (using the numbers from the 2000 census) just under 800,000 people we're saying don't get to vote, for no other reason than they have the misfortune of being in an involuntary abstract classification.

Is there some other 800,000 people we're willing to say to, "Well, sucks to be you, you don't get to vote because you belong to the wrong demographic, even though, really, we know there's no reason not to"?

But this is all hypothetical. Quite reasonably, you might be saying, "We don't know it's 40% of 15 year old girls. Maybe it's only... oh, I dunno... 5% of 15 year old girls." That's quite right. Maybe it's only 5%. That's just under 100k people -- out of 800k -- we'd be saying to "Nope, you don't get to vote solely because of how we've classified you."

How many people is it OK to, er, "collaterally" disenfranchise? Is it OK if we accidentally purge a bunch of people from voter roles in our effort to prevent felons from voting?

I think one is too many. I may give up on democracy some day, but not today. Today, I'm holding on to basic principles: If you pay taxes, you vote. If you're a citizen, you vote. That voting is both a right and a duty, and that it is a crime to unvoice any citizen in this society who is capable of raising one. That too much grief has come to use by trying to pick and chose which people are people enough to vote.

If there is a single person at the age of 15 -- or the age of 12 -- or the age of 5 -- who understands what a vote is enough to request one, then, bless their hearts and give them a ballot.

[continued]

[siderea]

[continued]

Now, typically, the argument is raised that figuring out which subset of the youth population is adequately prepared to vote is just too much trouble -- that "you have to draw the line somewhere". Which amounts to, "Nope, you don't get to vote because it's more expedient to prohibit you than allow you." I'm not a big fan of "expedient" as an argument where democracy is concerned. Democracy is not expedient, and if we start arguing from expediency, before too terribly long our government will be telling us it's not expedient for any of us to vote.

Age is a terrible way to "draw the line", for pretty much everything. This gets made really clear if we look at the problem from the other end: should we be revoking the right to vote from the elderly? Should we be saying, "Hey, at 80, on average, most people aren't mentally competent to vote so nobody over 80 votes any more?" At what age are you willing to forfeit franchise, just because?

The only advantage that using age as a demarcation has is that it is objective and equally applicable to all people. It is "fair". But fair at what? Fair at disenfranchising a class of human beings regardless of their capacities or desires for handling that responsibility.

It is fair, but it is not just. The people voted into the White House and to Capitol Hill when a boy is 14 may enact the draft which sends him to fight and maybe die when he is 18. I think that boy has a right to participate in the election which could mean life or death for him.

Nor is that the only significant issue. Parental notification of abortion. Funding for college. Funding for pre-secondary education. Health care. Welfare. Minimum sentences. Minimum wage.

We may not like how they vote, but that's not a reason not to let them do so.

So, yes, I do think it's basically a good idea for children 5-15 to be able to vote if they want to.

However, there is a reason parents have control over their children until they become legal adults and it is not abitrary nor an attempt to disenfranchise a large group.

I'd like to challenge you on that. The historical roots of the legal status of children in our society are in the fact that they were chattels, just like women, slaves, and non-human livestock. We justify the prerogatives of parents over their children as "for their own good", but the fact of the matter is that children were (and to a frightening extent still are) owned property, and every "interference" with the rights of parents to dispose of their children as they wish has been resisted fiercely.

It has only been within my life time that controversial(!) cases have established that, for instance, a parent cannot prevent an infant child from receiving life-saving medical care because such care violates the parent's religious beliefs and that a minor child may "divorce" a parent who murdered the child's other parent. That assault and battery against one's own child should be considered a crime is still controversial in certain demographic segments, as is "depriving" abusive adults of the children they have abused.

I do not mean to argue that children do not need parents, nor that children don't constitute a largely impaired class that requires protection. But a truly remarkable amount of what passes for the "protection" of children is the prerogatives of adults to own and to dispose of children's bodies and minds.

[continued]

[siderea]

[continued]

Unfortunately, the class of people that, statistically, children most need to be protected from is... their parents. Those who would strengthen dominion of parents over their children usually take the rhetorical tack of conflating the interests of parents and children. But the interests of parents and children are often enough at odds, and what parents would like to do with their children is not always in their children's best interests.

This is one reason I don't feel it entirely adequate for parents to represent their children's interests at the polls. Parents, as a class, are naturally given to arrogate to themselves rights over their children, to choose what they think should happen to their children rather than letting their children choose, even when those children are perfectly capable of making that choice. After all, it might be a choice the parent doesn't like, and with the power available, the temptation is always there to compel where one can't convince.

[jimpage363.livejournal.com]

I think we've gotten far afield and probably missed the most important point in the dicussion of "should or shouldn't". Children, and that is a large group, so let's say from 0 - about 15 or so, are not developmentally capable of making decisions for which they can be held as responsible as an adult making the same decision. I say this as a youth educator with a degree and many years of experience, let alone research, backing me up.

Your points regarding parents not always acting in their children's best interest is well-taken but can hardly be considered as descriptive of the majority.

There is no absolute justice nor perfect democratic solution, mostly because this is the real world. Remember the quote about democracy being a terrible system but it's better than any other system we have?

The current system excludes children from the voting populace until they reach their majority. It also disenfranchises felons, but I'm Ok with that, too.

Thanks, Justin, for bringing forward an interesting point to debate!