Can we please put this voting-disfranchisement-thing in the bin of things that will never happen
Sure.
However, I don't agree that all "we do need is a massive education campaign, coupled with practicing-what-we-preach."
Here's what I propose.
We look at the original intents behind enfranchising white property-owning males 21 or older, then consider what we might need to do, politically, to restore the necessary protections that this was intended to provide.
1. White -- bad. This was intended to keep slaves and former slaves from voting against slavery. BAD BAD BAD. This original intent has been disposed of, and good riddance to it!
2. Property-owning. This was intended to keep people from voting themselves the property of others. It was likely believed that property owners would be far less likely to want eminent domain abuse, or
de facto eminent domain abuse, such as we now see with private property being appropriated as nature preserves at the owners' expense.
So, what do we do to provide similar protection for property rights, with an extended franchise?
3. Males. In a time before birth control and popular above-board homosexuality, this effectively meant that each
household got a vote, more or less. The census counted population, not households, and also slaves * 3/5.
This was flawed to begin with, of course, for all sorts of reasons. It seems to me that, if certain people are allowed to vote, Congress should be apportioned according to the number of voters, or households, or something, not the number of children in the area. Maybe we SHOULD have one household, one vote, but then we should also have Congressional representation according to that number, not the population. Maybe. I'm not at all sure about this one, or what to do with it.
Obviously, women are often heads of households, and people have children far later than in the past, if at all in some cases.
I'm not proposing we disenfranchise women; I am asking, though, was there some merit to a vote-per-household system, and is there something we ought to do to compensate for the loss of this check-and-balance?
4. 21 or older. I understand the idea that, if 18 year olds can be drafted, then they ought to be given a voice. Makes sense to me. On the other hand, I have met few 18 year olds who know enough to vote. They know what they've been told. I also have a moral problem with the different ages at which adulthood supposedly starts. 18 to vote, 21 to drink, 21 to get a handgun, 18 to get the death penalty, not to mention the various ridiculous variations of the "age of consent" in different states, sometimes different between the sexes.
We really ought to decide
when someone becomes an adult. Or, if we can't, perhaps one shouldn't be allowed to vote if one is still being deducted as a dependent on a parent's tax return?
Or maybe, should we have universal military service, like Switzerland or Austria? Might that mitigate some of the perceived problem during the Viet Nam era?
Again, I think there might be some serious consideration to be done here.
My point is not to disenfranchise a bunch of people. My point is to offer food for thought: if you change one part of a system, you need to consider the consequences elsewhere in that system. If they're good, then leave them. But if not, ignoring them just creates a new set of problems.
