(Bloomberg View) -- Joshua Douglas argues that the Parkland students organizing against gun violence are a great demonstration of why 16- and 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote. See his recent law review article here.
This is one of my longtime hobbyhorses, and so I certainly agree. Indeed, I'd go lower, setting the voting age at 13 or 14, although I'm open to arguments for making it a bit higher or lower. Sixteen, however, is to me an easy call.
Part of my case for young voting that Douglas doesn't mention in his column is that, for me, voting is the training wheels of political participation. And yet we not only allow more sophisticated political action from high school students -- everything from organizing marches to lobbying their legislators to electioneering -- but we also generally encourage and praise it. The plain fact is that these sorts of activities, which no one has ever suggested banning as far as I know, are more difficult and more influential than single votes can ever be. So why should we prevent them from voting?
My best guess is that it wouldn't have much of an effect on election results. Right now, young people appear to be heavily Democratic, but over time it's shifted back and forth. It's also almost certainly the case that turnout among young people would run in the family; high school sophomores or juniors whose parents rarely vote would surely be less likely to take the initiative on their own. Indeed, I suspect eligible high-school-age voters would tend to have low turnout rates overall, just as traditional college-age young people are relatively infrequent voters. I do agree with Douglas, however, that getting in the habit during high school would probably tend to increase participation going forward.
The bottom line for me is that democracies should expand the franchise whenever possible, and they should have very strong reasons to deny the vote to any citizen -- or to make it difficult for any eligible voter to exercise their right. I've been arguing the case for young people voting for some time now and haven't heard any strong reasons against it. If people in the 17th century had decided on giving the vote from birth, with parents voting for their children until they were old enough to vote for themselves, we would consider that correct and natural and a gross violation of democracy if anyone tried to take away those votes. I don't support voting from birth. But 16- and 17-year-olds? Of course.
1. Matt Grossmann on conservatives and their Republican presidents.
2. Vladimir Kogan, Stéphane Lavertu and Zachary Peskowitz on low-turnout elections.
3. Excellent Perry Bacon Jr. item about media coverage of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
4. Danielle Kurtzleben on all those women -- mostly Democrats -- running for office this year.
5. Sean Trende on the new Pennsylvania map and how it will affect House elections.
6. And Dan Drezner has some suggestions for what Donald Trump should watch on TV instead of cable news. Well, yes, but to make the obvious point: as long as he doesn't start watching "The Americans."
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Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.
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