Well, given that the "youth vote" was once again mostly a no-show, the probelm is somewhat self-correcting.

1. After the first few Jaywalkings, it became clear that it was staged (or they dug really deep to find people that stupid)

2. Just another example of "playing not to lose instead of "playing to win."

I just don't get the right's unwillingness to work for votes and make the time and effort to persuade.

The far better idea might be to develop a quiz, and if you can pass it you can vote. Disenfranchise by IQ/knowledge - not age. 80-20 nation.

BB:

There should certainly be a written civics test also.

Just get rid of same day registration and absentee ballots and require people to actually show up and vote in person with at least as much ID as you need to board a jet to Cancun, and you will self-select a lot of non-voters.

And it's too bad the 24th Amendment had to be passed to stop the abuses by Democrat segregationists. Then again, we are living with a lot of legacies of the Democrats tolerating abhorent behavior in their ranks, aren't we? Which makes the MooreOns nothing new.

Raoul's right - simply enforcing the voting rules would prevent a lot of problems. And hasn't this sight been noting studies showing that Gen X (or whatever they are called) are more conservative than the baby boomers? Besides, to be fair the voting age should match the age you can join the military.

The problem with the idiocy of restricting the franchise to those we deem voteworthy is quite simply the fact that the others pay taxes.

"President Nixon. . . signing the 26th Amendment into law in 1971, giving 18-year-olds the right to vote."

An undeserved calumny. The president has no role in the constitutional amendment process.

Raise the age to 21. bring back literacy tests -- at least as much as is required of new citizens. Voter ID fixed place of abode. no-one who is non compos.

The voting age should be raised to 25. With so many immature people in their early 20s, I sometimes think the age of legal adulthood should be raised to 21.

Bart:

No they don't.

It's especially ridiculous considering 18 year olds aren't considered responsible enough to buy a beer.

(Of course that ought to be changed . . .)

Of all the stupid, destructive things that Richard Nixon did as president, this seems pretty low on the list. Of course it's dumb to give 18 year olds the vote, but they don't vote.

Vince:

The age of legal adulthood is 21.

oj:

Uh... Right.

Please name any group of people who earn money (even under the table), or spend it, that don't pay taxes.

FICA, sales, property (which is paid by renters as well, indirectly), auto registration, anyone with a telephone...

The only people who don't pay taxes are subsistence farmers squatting on public lands, a rather minute group.

Seniors on Social Security. Welfare recipients. Government employeees. Etc. All are supported by government rather than supporting government. It's dangerous to let such people vote.

Since I'm young and voted for W. my first time out, I'll split the difference here and say any voter over age 18 who passes a moderately tough civics test ought to be allowed to vote. I figure if you can't drive a car without demonstrating some basic competency, why are election workers busting their humps to make sure people who don't even speak English get to vote like the rest of us?

This idea is brilliant and we can thus be sure it will never be adopted.

"Democracy works when KNOWLEDGEABLE citizens vote"

Yes and no. Competitive aggregation of knowledge and information outperforms alternatives: democratic processes outperform dictatorships, markets outperform central planning, etc. Certainly, if there is no knowledge to aggregate, then democracy would work equally poorly with other forms of rule.

If there is ANY knowledge in a group of citizens, their addition as voters will enhance the outcome. Even if each voter is mostly ignorant, the competitive aggregation will incorporate their knowledge into the overall result. The ignorance, considered "noise" in the statistical process, tends to cancel out. What's left over is the knowledge.

In addition, like anything else, voting and civic responsibility takes practice. I think 18 is too late and the voting age should be lowered even further. My eight year old daughter is stunningly knowledgeable regarding politics, and whereas even I think that eight is too young, I think 16 or even 14 would be better than 18.

Lastly, I'm surprised that a conservative site like this would prefer to raise the voting age. It strikes me that conservative ascendency started with the lowering of the voting age. Before that, the higher voting age enabled people to be irresponsible and therefore more liberal for longer.

The amendment probably was a mistake, but it has done little harm. Very few students and the like actually vote, and I don't think they've affected any election. No reason to repeal it.

The Democrats pushed for passage of the amendment thinking the youth vote would always be energized in their direction, but as has been pointed out many times before, once Nixon removed the draft as an issue, the majority of the 18-21 year old's political passion evaporated, with even the legacy passion dying out after the South Vietnamese surrender in 1975. That's why Charlie Rangel and the gang have been pushing the draft resumption effort so hard, since they think it's the only way to get those college students into the voting booth.

Other than a draft actually happening, the 18-21 group is pretty self-selectingly apathetic, but not clueless, about the vote -- they're not old enough to really be interested, while at the same time few of them mindlessly go into the booth and pull the lever the way MTV tells them to. Based on that, I agree with Chris that there's no need to take the vote away from them, any more than there is taking it away from seniors who read the AARP newsletter and think their Social Security is going to be obliterated within the next four years.

My vote is for Male property owners only having the franchise. I'm only half kidding.

"The only people who don't pay taxes are subsistence farmers squatting on public lands, a rather minute group"

Most of them raise a very valuable cash crop.

Before the election, Dennis Miller said that many were afraid that with so many new young voters being registered, that the Dems had a big advantage.

"Yeah, but if there's a good Laverne and Shirley re-run on, forget about them showing up."

How true.

Any young man or woman who's taking bullets to defend my freedom and my family should get the vote in my book. I don't care if they vote for Bevis or Butthead, they're qualified to vote. I know plenty of 40-year olds who have nothing on these kids. There's no better way to honor them than to allow them the dignity to choose the kind of country for which they're risking their lives.

To deny them the franchise is the worst kind of elitism, it both regards them as inferior in a Blue-State sort of way, yet deems them fit to die for the very elites who think them mentally incapable of participating in democracy, as if these young men and women were disposable in a Roe sort of way.

No, the best kind of elitism, one designed to protect our liberty.

I voted for the 1st time in 1978 @ age 19 and I've voted consistantly ever since. Exercising my right to vote is a patriotic duty. Also, as a religious person, I believe that while God above and beyond human culture, he is also concerned about and actively involved with human affairs. By voting, I am, I believe, helping to shape a better (more just and righteous) society, which is what God expects from us and desires for us.

Why do so few young people not know who the VP is or even which hemisphere they live in? Why do so few young people make an earnest effort to become knowledgable about politics, government, and the world around them? Finally, what can we do to change the fact that we are failing to give young people the tools and information necessary for them to be intellegent, informed and active voters?

Robert Heinlein, in his book Starship Troopers (forget the movie exists, read the book!), postulates a democratic society in which evryone enjoys full citizenship, but must do 2 years of Federal service in order to gain the frachise to vote. Also, absolutely no volunteers are refused. This would seem to address the "old enough to die/old enough to vote" problem, as well as effectively raising the minimum voting age to 20 or so.

There's no way such an idea would come to fruition in our nation today, but it's an intriguing idea. As a veteran, I can appreciate the rights/responsibility aspect of it quite well. Ownership Society, anyone?

I'd go with AWW.

Keep it at 18 but civics testing required, for all ages, with retesting at 70.

Proper I.D. should be required.

The "old enough to die, old enough to vote" concept went out the window with the end of the draft; but smart enough to vote trumps.

Those who don't vote probably shouldn't

Heck, you are old enough to die at conception.

I moved to MA last January and soon registered under the motor voter scheme.

Nov 2, I took the stuff I got from the registar, my drivers licence, and a recent utility bill just as required by the Mass web site.

The poll watcher couldn't care less about ID, just name and address.

Govt. employees pay taxes

Mike:

They pay more than they get in salary?

I'm willing to exclude gov't employees at all levels, city to Federal, including active duty military, as well as welfare recipients and college students receiving Federal grants, but not SS recipients.

After all, SS is a pension plan that requires contributions...
It's not the fault of seniors that society's demographics changed.
As of the 80s, SS was thought to be on a sound footing.

Robert Schwartz:

No kidding, especially in the Northwest.
However, those people pay sales taxes when acquiring goodies with their ill-gotten gains, plus they often have cell phones and automobiles that they pay taxes on, etc.