It’s National Voter Registration Day. Lately I’ve been feeling we have too many “National [insert your favorite topic here] Day” days, but this one’s particularly important. Not only because of our current situation, but because so many fought so hard to secure your right to vote. And while we still have a long way to go to ensure the right to vote to every American, your vote matters. So vote.

Kelsey Piper writing for Vox:

I don’t expect that enfranchising all children will solve all our problems. There are some very real drawbacks here. I expect that enfranchising everyone will make the electorate less informed on average. I don’t have any idea whether it’d be a win for my preferred policies.

But I think the moral case for enfranchising children overwhelms these concerns. In a democracy, the default ought to be that the people can vote — even if we think they’re not very smart or not very informed or not worthy of the privilege. Much of the promise of democracy is that giving people power over their government is a good thing. Taking that seriously means extending the vote as far as we can.

This an incredibly interesting argument. I had never before seriously considered lowering the voting age, much less to 0, but I must admit the case laid out here for lowering it by Piper is compelling and thought-provoking.