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.