The case for lowering the voting age is probably better than you think.
The Parkland student activists are doing an incredible job exercising their rights. They’re speaking out, they’re lobbying policymakers, and they’ve mobilized millions of people to join them in working to curb gun violence.
So why can’t all these students vote?
One curious feature of our political system is that everyone born after November 6, 2000 can’t vote this year. This seems natural and acceptable. It shouldn’t be.
Arguments about whether or not minors should vote have always struck a nerve with me. It’s probably because I’m a civics nerd at heart: In high school, I convinced my friends to sign up for an American government elective that hadn’t run in years, I was class president, I dropped off voter registration forms with students when they turned 18, and I even amended the student government constitution to make that voter registration project a part of the job for students who came after me.
So, yeah, I think voting is important. And I find all the arguments against extending the right to vote to teenagers to be without merit. Under examination, they fall apart. And they echo the same mean-spirited arguments that have kept the ballot out of other people’s hands for generations.
