One presidential contender wants to lower the voting age and eliminate voter ID laws.
Citing positive results, Democratic contender Andrew Yang says he supports lowering the voting age to 16.
“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,” his website says.
Yang also said people are disadvantaged based on when they were born during the year. “Senators are on a 6-year cycle, and the president is on a 4-year cycle, not to mention local offices. Someone born at the wrong time in a cycle would have to wait much longer to cast a ballot for certain offices than someone born at another time. While that’s true if the voting age is lowered to 16, it decreases the age at which the person is first allowed to vote for that office, thus allowing them to have a longer period of their life where they feel represented.”
Voter ID laws would be on the chopping block in a Yang presidency as well. He supports automatic voter registration, which eliminates the voter ID requirement. Yang’s justification is rooted in a supposed 60% increase in voter registration rates because of ‘convenience.’
“Why do we make it such a headache to register to vote? When you turn 18 you should be automatically enrolled. Other countries do this and, shocker, their voting rates are higher.”
Among the pillars of his voting rights platform, Yang supports:
- Same day voter registration
- Voting via mobile device
- Implementing ranked choice voting
Yang also supports giving felons released from prison, as well as those currently incarcerated who “have not deprived someone else of their right to vote,” the right to vote. “This will improve their lives drastically, for obvious reasons. It will also make the rest of us safer, as some studies have shown that ex-felons who vote are half as likely to reoffend. By giving these individuals a larger stake in society, we make our entire country stronger.”
What do you think?
