One thing you can say about the left is that they do not squander their majorities with concerns about how the electorate (or their respective bureaucratic states) will view their priorities. They just do it.
The Green Mountain State (which now refers to the growing pile of new taxes) passed a law allowing municipalities to permit underage voting in local elections, which is illegal to my inexpert reading of their State Constitution.
QUALIFICATIONS OF FREEMEN AND FREEWOMEN
§ 42. [Voter’s qualifications and oath]
Every person of the full age of eighteen years who is a citizen of the United States, having resided in this State for the period established by the General Assembly and who is of a quiet and peaceable behavior, and will take the following oath or affirmation, shall be entitled to all the privileges of a voter of this state:
You solemnly swear (or affirm) that whenever you give your vote or suffrage, touching any matter that concerns the State of Vermont, you will do it so as in your conscience you shall judge will most conduce to the best good of the same, as established by the Constitution, without fear or favor of any person.
Every person who will attain the full age of eighteen years by the date of the general election who is a citizen of the United States, having resided in this State for the period established by the General Assembly, and who is of a quiet and peaceable behavior, and will take the oath or affirmation set forth in this section, shall be entitled to vote in the primary election.
To vote, you must be 18 years old, a citizen, and polite and orderly, which means most Democrats are invalidated, so clearly, there is room for exceptions. But why does this not invalidate the underage voting law in Brattleboro (or Burlington’s non-citizen local election voting ordinance)? Being either 16 or 17 is not the full age of 18 unless we’ve decided that calendar age is another social construct.
Math being racist, that possibility is not beyond the pale.
Has there been any challenge to this, or are we waiting for a 17-year-old to vote in an election so that someone over 18 has standing to sue? The Constitution seems straightforward, but no one can press the issue.
But, But … Taxes!
Advocates of underage voting also insist that since these “kids” are working and pay taxes, they should have a voice, but as I pointed out here,
If being taxed justifies the right to vote because of all that taxation without representation business, then no state should legally be able to tax anyone who is not represented in that state’s legislature. [But] … states tax out-of-state residents who work in their states but [then] do not allow them to vote in that state.
It must therefore be legal and reasonable to deny the right to vote without regard to taxation.
Federally, the government has run up more than 30 trillion in federal debt, upon which there will be tens of trillions more in interest payments for debt service (more taxes), paid for by people who are not yet alive to work or be taxed. They did not vote for anyone who spent that money or for the spending but must shoulder a tax burden decades before they have the shoulders to bear it. As I’ve been prone to add: talk about a voting rights issue.
Perhaps the taxed should have a voice, in which case everyone gets to vote, even babies not yet born, which presents an interesting problem for Democrats and the abortion lobby. Does that include lumps of cells in Democrat wombs, and can they vote without acknowledging their personhood? Vote or die could be vote then die.
Would the mere intention to get pregnant qualify (I’m expecting I’ll be behaving triplets) given that multiple as yet-born generations already have a tax burden thanks to uniparty debt spending?
As you can see, the tax argument also makes no sense, but neither does the underage voting ordinance. These kids can’t buy beer, enter into contracts, get married, buy or own firearms, or purchase Vape of Tobacco, and according to the State constitution (I think), it would be illegal to allow them to vote.
But they could vote for those things.
And Think of all the good they could do to Brattleboro, or even Vermont if they just got organized and suddenly started voting… Republican.
Would it be unconstitutional, then?
