Voting

1.1. A Constitutional amendment forbidding the right to vote to be denied on the basis of age should be proposed and sent to the states for ratification.

Our nation's concept of a representative democracy has changed since the 18th century, when only white, male property-owners could vote. Since then, the poor, non-whites, women, and, most recently, 18-year-olds have gained the unrestricted right to vote through Constitutional amendments. It follows now that the one remaining class of citizens prohibited from voting -- under18s -- should be next in line to be enfranchised.

Voting is power. Since they have nothing to fear from unenfranchised youth, our politicians have burdened us with age restrictions, dilapidated schools, unsympathetic intermediaries (police, school administrators, etc.), and, in the past, wars. Only suffrage will guarantee permanent ground to stand up for ourselves.

A historical note: In 1776, John Adams worried about the liberalization of suffrage laws in Massachusetts. He wrote: "It is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end of it. New claims will arise: women will demand a vote; lads from twelve to twenty-one will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state."

Two-thirds of Adamsâ contemptuous prediction has come true; the other part should as well.

ASFAR Voting Age Site