Child's play

On Tuesday, hundreds of high school-aged Young Democrats and Young Republicans sat on their couches watching C-Span while the fate of their schools and their right to have an abortion were decided by other people, many of whom don't know a Bush from a tree.

No American under 18 is allowed to vote, a law I find offensive. When you're 17, the only levers you can pull are on slot machines (oh, wait — you don't get to do that either. I meant toy slot machines). But the second you turn 18, not only can you vote, but people talk about your obligation as a citizen in a democracy to do so. Anyone who prefers playing in the crisp November leaves to voting in elections that have already been decided by millions of other people commits a moral wrong. I fail to see the rationale behind such reactions.

Since we've always learned that universal suffrage is such a great thing, I'll now try to knock down the arguments against it.

Kids are not affected by elections. Wrong. Many people under 18 work. Thus, they pay taxes. And many of them earn minimum wage, and thus might want to increase it. Some work to support their families. Their parents' welfare and Social Security checks even affect some of them. Some are parents. Health care policy affects them. People under 18 aren't allowed to buy cigarettes or alcohol, and some aren't allowed to drive. Some might want to have a say on these controversial policies.

Kids don't understand the political issues. And on our 18th birthday the election fairy magically gives us a comprehensive understanding of prescription drug prices and the Middle East peace process — and then takes us to a womb, where we get to ask a fetus whether he's a person yet. (He says, "No," by the way.)

Everyone understands the issues to varying degrees. Kids probably do not understand them as well as their parents. But that shouldn't affect their right to vote. If we found out that, say, underwear models tended to know less about the issues than the rest of the population, we still wouldn't deny them suffrage.

In addition, enfranchising kids will motivate them to learn about political issues. Schools will stress politics at an earlier age, and news organizations will introduce programs aimed at informing kids. As a result, even if the total percentage of voter turnout declines (because kids are less likely to vote than parents), the percentage of voter turnout among adults will increase, because politics will have been a bigger part of their upbringing.

Kids don't know the difference between the candidates. The same arguments apply here. A poll by Time and MTV found that 25 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 couldn't name the two major presidential hopefuls. Of course, that figure is probably higher for people under 18. But knowing the candidates' names is currently not a qualification for voting.

And knowing the candidates' positions isn't a qualification either. During the debates, even Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush disagreed on the facts about each other's platforms. Plus, even well-informed adults are as clueless as babies when it comes to candidates in local elections.

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Many kids do know the difference. These are the kids who are most likely to show up to the polls. And even if 80 percent of them choose the candidates at random (as any adult has the right to do), the 20 percent who do know what they're doing will sway the kid vote toward a well-informed outcome. In an Oct. 20 phone and Internet survey of kids conducted by cable network Nickelodeon, 55 percent of the 330,798 voters chose Bush, according to the Fox News Website. That poll had correctly predicted three of the last four presidential elections; it could be four out of five if Bush regains Florida.

Kids will vote the way their parents tell them to vote. Many will. But people of all ages have values that were influenced by their parents. And our society generally supports passing values to children rather than leaving them open to other influences, such as the mass media.

Even so, kids might still interpret the issues differently from their parents. Since the 1950s, the transmission of parental partisanship to kids has declined. In 1992, only 57 percent of students with Democratic parents voted Democratic and 56 percent of students with Republican parents voted Republican. That was down from 79 and 72 percent, respectively, in 1958.

Parents and kids do disagree on the issues. A 1974 study found that student-aged offspring of parents who opposed the federal role in racial integration actually favored it, 45 percent to 41 percent. A February 1999 Nickelodeon survey found that 52 percent of kids thought President Clinton should be impeached, whereas only 40 percent of parents felt that way.

But how low should we go? Should infants be allowed to vote?

One could argue that a baby's vote is just as uninformed as an adult who doesn't know the issues or candidates. But assuming we discard this argument and draw the line, where would it be?

I might pick age five or six — when kids enter elementary school and begin their formal education. Or maybe 14 — when they enter high school and some begin to work. Less arbitrary perhaps — but more problematic to execute — would be to institute a fluency test that can be satisfied in any language. No one can be a well-informed voter until he or she can process verbal communication. Once that ability is attained, kids have access to enough information about elections and should be able to vote. A more moderate proposal, broached in a recent USA Today column, would be to allow parents to cast proxy votes for their kids. Any of these proposals would be fairer and less arbitrary than the current cutoff of 18. Zach Pincus-Roth is a philosophy major from Chevy Chase, Md. He can be reached at zacharyp@princeton.edu.