Debating voting rights for 16-year-olds: What is an adult?

New Mexico lawmakers may soon weigh permitting 16-year-olds to vote in local elections. The proposal is part of a package of voting changes urged by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver for the 30-day session that opens Tuesday.

The 26th amendment lowered the federal voting age from 21 to 18 in 1971, but the state that led the way was Georgia, which permitted 18-year-olds to vote locally beginning in 1943 after a campaign promoting the World War II-era slogan, “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.”

“Old enough to drive, old enough to vote” would not pack the same moral punch, perhaps; and yet the proposition that these are just “kids” who are not up to voting is weak.

However this gets decided, it is an opportunity to examine our ideas about age and what makes someone an adult.

Teenagers as young as 14 can be part of the workforce, pay taxes, be put on trial as adults and, at 16, take on life-and-death responsibilities such as operating a motor vehicle. The age of consent in many states is 16 and teenagers are affected by laws limiting their access to birth control and other health services. When all of these burdens can be placed on them and more, it is hard to explain why they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, too.

Several countries have extended suffrage to 16-year-olds and some U.S. municipalities do so locally. Oakland, California allows 16-year-olds a say in school board elections.

Advocates argue that opening the vote to 16-year-olds encourages voter participation and civic education while instilling voting as a habit early in life.

Oh, but brace yourself if you follow this motion’s progress, for scorn is sure to be heaped on the young: The committee hearings, public comments and floor debates will warn of bedlam if we allow these wayward youths to vote — even though New Mexico already permits 17-year-olds to vote in primaries if their 18th birthday falls on or before the general election.

There will be pseudo-scientific arguments about brain development, proposing that the solemn rite of suffrage cannot be entrusted to 16-year-old brains influenced more by the emotionally reactive amygdala than the more reasonable frontal cortex, as with the grownups.

For example, the Albuquerque Journal editorial board jeered: “We have heard for years young minds are not mature until age 25, yet we want to put elections entailing nine-figure budgets in the hands of 16-year-olds?”

This is comedy gold. Are 16-year-olds any more likely to, say, riot and storm a Capitol building if their candidate loses an election, beating up reporters and police? Are they more apt to support TV star candidates with no relevant preparation over candidates with backgrounds in government and public service? Are they any more susceptible to propaganda and disinformation, more or less likely to vote on the basis of white grievance or careless ignorance?

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What is this figmental standard of sober adult voting against which we measure the 16-year-old? It is preposterous. The adults who bring themselves to vote at all have so often embarrassed themselves and elevated fools, mountebanks and martinets to the highest levels of the republic in disdain for their fellow citizens.

Will they now tell me a young person who might work a job, complete an associate’s degree, enroll in a junior EMT program or otherwise look forward at life isn’t “serious” enough to participate? Stop, you’re killing me.

Surveys suggest the majority of Americans, and younger adults in particular, tend to view voting as a fundamental right rather than a privilege.

Yet it is viewed as an “adult” right, assuming a standard of character and judgment among American adults that is all too rare and can be found, as well, among the younger participants of our society and economy.

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached via adammassa@lcsun-news.com or @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Debating voting rights for 16-year-olds: What is an 'adult?'