About two years ago now, I was sitting on a bench in Central Park writing my initial thoughts on what I didn’t know then but would come to know as Youth Rights.
I don’t think I’ll ever remember why she did, but about halfway through the day Greta Thunberg came to mind, and I looked up the voting age in Sweden. And my blood boiled in a way I’ve never experienced in my entire life.
16 years old and one of the most famous and recognizable political activists in the world. 16 years old giving a confident, impassioned, admonishing speech to the fucking UN. 16 years old with no legal right to a voice in her country. No voice to vote for the policies she believed in or the people who might enact them.
My writing, already vitriolic to a fault, managed to become even moreso but with the topic abruptly switched to voting. For the first time in my life, I considered where I’d place the voting age if I could do so unilaterally. Not long into considering it I had a thought that I wrote down immediately, a question I’ve asked well over 100 times at this point with no substantial answer:
When is it reasonable to say to a person, ‘If you’re not at least this old, then I don’t give a fuck what you think’?
And from the moment I had that thought, I have been unable to place the voting age.
Until they reach that point, it’s essentially their parents or guardians getting an extra vote.
Honestly I’ve sometimes thought that parents ought to be able to vote for their kids. At least that gives some form of representation to children.
In that regard, they already have representation by their parents’ votes. All it would achieve is giving parents outsized voting power.
In that regard, they already have representation by their parents’ votes.
But that vote only counts as much as one person, so it doesn’t give any more representation to the child if you ask me. My whole point is that a parent should have outsized voting power because they represent two persons, not one (okay actually each parent would get 1.5 votes as the child’s vote would be split on each parent but my point is the same).
No, no citizen whatsoever should be able to cast the votes of other citizens, period.
If the kid can’t get in the voting booth by themselves, cast their own vote without assistance, then they aren’t voting, someone else is.
