The Minimum Voting Age Should Be Zero
September 1, 2021
The 2020 presidential election saw the highest vote total in any American election ever, driven by a historic increase in turnout among eligible voters. Even so, the total number of voters amounted to just 48 percent of the population measured in the 2020 census. Most people living in America either could not or did not cast a vote.
For each group of people prohibited from casting a vote, there is some rationale. Noncitizens are not formally part of the body politic; democracies since Athens have included franchise restrictions as punishment for criminals; children can’t make well-informed rational choices. Many people may disagree with one or several of these choices. Maybe denying the franchise to felons is unjust, given bias in the criminal justice system, or perhaps permanent residents should be allowed to vote, as they often could in the 19th century.
