All citizens should be allowed to vote, regardless of their age. The minimum voting age should be zero, with parents and guardians casting the vote for their small children. As those children grow older, parents can include the vote in the gradual increase in independence and responsibility given to young people, until finally their children vote for themselves, likely in their early teen years…

The intuitive explanation for the prohibition against children voting is that they are incapable of understanding the issues. However, were governments to impose an IQ test for the ballot box, it would be plainly unconstitutional; “literacy tests” for voters have a terrible legacy. Were people with cognitive impairments denied the vote as a class, this would be considered discriminatory on its face and, frankly, bigoted (and even the individual cases of “mental incompetence” being used to deny the franchise have rightly provoked anger)…

But child voting should not be favored simply on the grounds that we must allow it in order to avoid discrimination. Child voting is not a necessary evil, it’s good.

The choice to deny the vote to children creates absurd policy dynamics: The Congressional Budget Office scores the cost of important policies like a carbon tax or an expansion of the child tax credit on a 10-year baseline, with an electorate that is, on average, just a bit more than 10 years away from retirement.