Let the young people vote!

In the Democratic debate last night, candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar made a point of her support for automatic voter registration at age 18; she contended that if this reform had existed in Georgia in 2018, Stacey Abram would be Governor today. This may be true and was certainly appropriate in Atlanta.

But there's a far more ambitious vision floating around the edges of the political system that very likely will gain traction over time. That's lowering the voting age to 16. Candidate Andrew Yang is on the case. He believes lowering the voting age would increase citizen engagement with democracy.

Studies show that allowing younger people to vote has positive impacts on overall voting habits. Localities that have lowered the voting age have seen an increase in voter turnout across all age groups. Other studies have shown that delaying when a person first votes (because of birth dates and election cycles) decreases the likelihood that they will become a regular voter.

At 16, Americans don’t have hourly limits imposed on their work, and they pay taxes. Their livelihoods are directly impacted by legislation, and they should therefore be allowed to vote for their representatives.

Last March, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) introduced a bill in the House to lower the federal voting age to 16. She argued that young people "have their own distinct experiential wisdom."

A 16-year-old will bring with them the 2019 fears that their father’s insulin will run out before the next paycheck.

A 17-year-old will bring with them the 2019 hopes to be the first in their family to earn a college degree.

A 17-year-old will bring with them a 2019 solemn vow to honor the lives of their classmates stolen by a gunman.

The Democratic Party controlled House rejected Pressley's measure by 126 to 305. We old folks aren't ready apparently.

But if we really believe that U.S. democracy thrives when civil rights and civil responsibilities are accessible to all of us, Astra Taylor explains what we can learn from local experiments with the franchise for younger people.

In 2013, Takoma Park, Md., became the first city in the United States to lower the voting age for local elections to 16. The turnout rate of 16- and 17-year-olds in the next election was nearly twice that of those 18 and older, inspiring the nearby town of Hyattsville to follow Takoma Park’s example.

Something similar happened in local elections in Norway in 2011, when 21 municipalities conducted a trial lowering the voting age from 18 to 16. A range of studies support the conclusion that 18 is not the optimal age to bestow the right to vote; people are leaving the nest and too preoccupied navigating college and work to figure out how to cast a ballot, let alone register to do so.

It is also the case that voting, though typically regarded as the paramount individual right, is actually a social affair. Research conducted in Denmark shows that having children old enough to vote at home makes their parents more likely to vote as well. And it’s habitual: Once you vote, you are more likely to do it again. A person’s first election is critical, a kind of democratic gateway drug, and it’s best to get him hooked young.

Being serious about democracy is likely soon enough to mean, without much controversy, adopting the campaign for this extension of voting rights.

Extending the vote to younger people is not just a U.S. novelty notion. As the United Kingdom once again confronts an election in which the fate of Brexit is engaged, three of the main political parties -- Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish National Party -- all support a 16 year old voting age. If more young people had been able to vote (and more had bothered to do it), Brexit would never have passed. Yet it's the young people who will have to live with its consequences for much of their future lives.

Everywhere, it's the young people who will have to live with ever increasing consequences of climate chaos. Extending the vote to 16 year olds is only right....And if that seems too radical, you might want to consider a good explainer by Kelsey Piper on why just maybe there should be NO age qualification for voting.