Quote:
Originally Posted by RainMaker
|
They still are. I don't think this proposal was floated a a serious LET'S DO THIS FUCK OLD PEOPLE thing. Hell, the last two paragraphs all but explicitly say that. Two things I took away from this article:
1) What the article is railing against is a system of government established by the old to favor the old. One thing I wish the author had discussed a little more was 16-17 y/o's being allowed to vote on Scottish independence but not on the "Brexit." Why was that? Was that a specifically Scottish decision that didn't apply to the rest of the UK in other electoral circumstances?
One thing that happens domestically is an effort to suppress the youth vote. Hell, sometimes explicitly. Look at Ohio: 17 year olds are allowed to vote in primaries so long as they'll be 18 years old by Election Day.
The Republican Secretary of State there tried to play rules lawyer and say "Presidential candidates aren't directly nominated; voters elect delegates who then nominate the candidate. Since 17 year olds are only allowed to nominate, and not elect, they can't vote in Presidential primaries."
The courts smacked him down on that one.
The Wisconsin voter ID law mandates greater scrutiny of a college student's voter ID (their student ID is insufficient under the law; they have to request an additional ID, they have to present documentation proving their student status beyond their existing student ID, and even once they have that student voter ID, the poll worker has to check signatures) than of a "regular" citizen.
North Carolina explicitly ended a program in 2013 that "pre-registered" 17 year olds. That is, 17 year olds who would turn 18 before the general election were enrolled in a program upon receiving their driver's license that would automatically register them as voters. In the name of "reducing fraud," of course, which has often been a dog whistle for "preventing people we don't want voting from casting a ballot."
So, I mean, yeah. It's incongruous to see someone whose values include protecting the franchise calling for age-weighting of the vote to give the young a greater voice in their future, but in the larger context of "older people gaming the system for their benefit while the young are unable to push back," maybe it makes a little more sense. And that ties in to the second thing that caught my eye.
2) Did you look at the ratios proposed? A whole vote for the younger demographic, 60% of a vote for the middle aged? I don't think that was an accident. That author is drawing historical parallels to make a point about manipulation of the franchise.