Here's why it's "One Man, One Vote"

In this thread, starting here, Huerta88 advances an argument I’ve encountered in various forms over the years, that non-taxpayers should not have the same votes as taxpayers. (See Mark Twain’s “The Curious Republic of Gondour.”)

Now, we could have a system where votes are weighted by the voter’s annual tax burden, or IQ, or education, or net worth or income, or contributions to society however defined, or evaluations of personal moral character by some impartial board, or some combination of these, but we don’t. Nor do we have – any more – a system where voting privileges are simply denied to those who do not meet property qualifications, or race or sex qualifications. Voting is not a constitutional right as such, but it is a privilege every adult citizen presumptively has, subject to a range of strictly defined disqualifications, and, if you qualify, every voter gets one vote. It is not a privilege that needs to be earned, save by avoidance of felony convictions, etc. (Citizenship needs to be earned by an immigrant, but voting comes with it automatically.)

Why? Because, while we might not all be equal in the things that make our contributions as citizens or voters valuable to society, we all are equally interested in it, in that we all equally have to live in it and with it. Whatever government gets elected (or otherwise comes to power), it governs everybody, good and bad, wise and foolish, Doper and ignoramus, rich and poor, assets to society and burdens on society, as the rain falls upon the just and upon the unjust.

When Jefferson wrote, “all men are created equal,” he was making an ethical assertion, not a scientific one. He was not suggesting all human beings are equally good, intelligent, or anything else, but only that all are equally to be regarded as ends-in-themselves. Put anothe wayr: Bertrand Russell wrote somewhere that while one might come up with defenses of an aristocratic politics, e.g., Benthamite arguments that rule by an elite will produce the greatest good for the greatest number, there can be no defense for an aristocratic ethic, i.e., “These few are to enjoy the good things and the others merely to minister to them.” (He added that aristocracies have always acted in ways only such an ethic could justify, and as an English earl, Russell ought to know.)

And that’s why we give an equal vote to every citizen of legally responsible age and with the apparent mental capacity to make an electoral decision of any kind. My opinion about a given election might be more or less valuable than yours, but my interest in it is exactly equal.

Your position is very clearly stated and thoughtful. I’ll put some thought into seeing what I have to say as a rejoinder.

In the meanwhile, I’ll note what I’ve noted elsewhere (and this isn’t the first time I’ve raised this point in threads) – one way to think of my “non-taxpayers shouldn’t get the vote” is as a rhetorical device for saying “How in the Hell did we get to a point when we had so many GD people not paying federal income tax?” Those are Venn diagram cousins of the same argument. I do think there’s a problem with taking large blocs of people out of having any stake in the tax and spending policy equation as to any particular tax (the points about those people possibly paying payroll tax, local taxes, etc. were ably made in the other thread, and I duly note them). One of the potential problems of enlarging the non-taxpaying citizen base (there may be more, that’s probably a separate GD) is the perverse incentive it arguably creates for people to have a consequence-free vote, or to vote for whoever gives them the most bread or the best circuses. As you can possibly imagine, I am realist enough to understand that reducing the bread and circuses or at least making people pay a bit more admission fee is (perhaps very marginally) more likely a solution than taking anyone’s vote away (but I’m provocateur enough to use the latter as a rhetorical point).

The problem with this position is twofold:

  1. You are looking at government in solely its economic aspect. In principle a strongly Statist regime could outlaw you and expropriate all your worldly possessions for the benefit of the state, for no better reason than that it pleases it to do so. Granted that is bizarrely extreme, and a real-world government would and does hedge such a naked power/resource grab with so many disincentives it would never happen, the point I am making by it is that the limits to government power are not purely economic, but very personal. The proverbial homeless starving beggar nonetheless retains his life and his honor, even if he loses his fortune and his dignity. Therefore he should have equal access to that which has such power over him.

  2. TANSTAAFL. Everyone pays for everything they get – either directly or in increased costs/taxes/fees on other things.

So is my son’s. He’s nine.

In fact, given the number of years he has to live the results of decisions made now, his interest is arguably greater.

But we, as you acknowledge, are perfectly comfortable restricting the franchise to 18 year olds.

Why can’t other restrictions be considered?

Did he tell you to write that? Its not bad, for nine.

In a democracy, the people are all supposed to have a say in the government. I can accept the idea that some people (like children) aren’t competent to exercise that right. But I can’t see why tax liability should be a determining factor. That seems as arbitrary as saying white people can vote and black people can’t or men can vote and women can’t or people who own land can vote and renters can’t.

If paying taxes was a requirement for voting, then a bunch a rich people wouldn’t be voting. But, of course, voting is tiddlywinks compared to campaign contributions, influence-wise. I’m not sure what the real issue here is.

I think part of the problem with that analogy, and no insult to Bricker, Jr. is intended, because I’m sure he’s brilliant, is that we generally recognize nine year olds to be mentally and emotionally inferior, and naturally incompetent to participate in professional life.

While there are some people who say that the poor are naturally inferior, I don’t think that’s a position you share, so the analogy breaks down there.

Who says they can’t be? Pick one and argue for it. That would not be the same as contradicting any part of my argument in the OP.

And, to put the tax-contribution thing in perspective: Everybody pays property tax. If you own your home, you pay property tax. If you rent, your landlord pays property tax and part of your rent goes to that. If you buy something in a store, part of the purchase price goes to the rent which goes to pay the property tax, etc. Even bums pay property tax, if only for the liquor store.

In any case, there’s a fundamental difference between the mental inferiority of a not-too-swift adult, or even a mentally retarded one, and the mental inferiority of a child. Isn’t there? Not even a genius child would be allowed to live on his/her own, as most retarded adults do.

I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’d have a hard time arguing that there aren’t adults who are too mentally deficient to vote. And I’d have an equally hard time arguing that there aren’t precocious nine-year-olds who would be competent voters.

But as Mason once said to Dixon, we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. As a general rule, I believe it’s reasonable to say adults are competent voters and children aren’t. So it’s reasonable to establish an age limit on voting. I don’t believe that any similar reason exists to prohibit non-tax-payers, black people, women, or non-property-owners from voting.

And, children will be voters someday, and soon - but they will already have some views of the world and of their responsibilities within it formed by then. It only makes sense for adults to vote with the childrens’ interests in mind as well as their own, knowing that interest exists and is as valid as the adults’.

In no way is there a principled analogy to any adults being denied suffrage on the basis of, well, anything but mental competence. Even if the ones denied the vote might vote disproportionately against the Republicans. Now isn’t *that *what it’s all about, hmm? :dubious:

By definition, the poor and chronically unemployed have below-average abilities at seeing to their own interests. If the argument is that they should be able to vote so that they can see to their own interests, then the argument also holds that they will do a poor job of it.

Not at all true. They may very well have the innate ability to see after their own interests but have been prevented from doing so by obstacles such as chronic illness, poverty, or lack of a supportive or even an abusive family growing up.
People fail to thrive in our society for many reasons, some out of their control.

ETA: these people may very well be able to make intelligent decisions about who they want in office to best serve their needs (shouldn’t have left that part out)

And even to recognize that voting isn’t always, and shouldn’t be, only about the needs of the voter. No one is too disadvantaged in any way to recognize that they are part of a society, something larger than themselves, including other human beings who also have needs and aspirations, and to work in whatever way they can, including by voting, to help us all. Some of the brightest and some of the richest are also some of the most selfish, and some of the poorest and least educated are also among the best citizens and best human beings.

That the very concepts of altruism and communitarianism and basic civic responsibility are no longer assumed as matters of course in political discussions is frightening.

I wouldn’t classify someone who is physically ill (e.g. handicapped) as poor and chronically unemployed. Given their physical capabilities, they might be on the rich end of the spectrum. (Mentally ill, on the other hand…)

I don’t see how you’re saying that poverty is a justifiable excuse for poverty. I assume you mean that one’s parents were poor, in which case see the next bullet point.

If your family causes you to make poor decisions, that’s still you making poor decisions. If you could make good decisions, you would divorce yourself from your family and make the right decisions. It’s not fair, but it’s reality.

One of the ironies of current conservative thinking is that they’re “subsidizing” everyone else, when in fact conservative areas are net beneficiaries of Federal taxes. Maybe liberal states should just tell the conservative states to go fuck themselves; pay for their own roads, social security, medicare, etc. just like the vocal conservative contingent that rails against paying for “deadbeats” who want “handouts” from their taxes.

It’s not as though the country started out that way. Oh, wait, it did.

But when the income tax was finally created it applied to everyone. Oh, my bad, it didn’t.

But in the old days we didn’t rely on soaking corporations like we do now. Oops, wrong again, we used to get a larger percentage of taxes from corporations than we do now.

Really man, just give it up. The idea that what’s wrong with the country is that poor people don’t pay enough taxes is stupid.

Maybe we are on to something. Only people that pay taxes should be allowed to be part of the political process. Corporations are people. GE didn’t pay taxes, so therefore it shouldn’t be allowed to be part of the political process.