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Notes -
On giving parents votes for their children
One idea that people here have mentioned a couple of times has been to give parents a vote for each underage child they have. The more I think about it, the better this proposal seems, and not only just that, but almost everyone, no matter where they are on the political spectrum should find something in it they support.
Firstly on the logistics front this is very simple to implement. We already have a database of who is the legal parent of who, and whether or not they are emancipated from their parents. Every non-emancipated child's parents get a ballot paper in a different colour to the standard one (say a green ballot paper vs white for adults) which is worth half of a normal vote. So overall both parents of a child get half an extra vote that they can use to vote as they wish. Then we can just count the votes after the election, giving 1/2 weighting to the green ballots. If you have 4 children you are legally the parent of (and responsible for), then you get 1 white and 4 green ballots every election, totally to 3 full votes. Any emancipated children get their full vote, as they are already considered adults for many other things.
This method removes the argument that children shouldn't get a vote because they aren't well developed enough to choose themselves what they want. We already trust parents to act in their child's best interest for many things, asking parents to vote for them as well isn't much of a stretch beyond this. It also rewards parents for sticking with their children and raising them well, as you only get to vote on their behalf if you accept responsibility for them.
The consequences of such a policy would be very positive. Firstly the greater political power handed to parents over non-parents would lead to policies favouring those with children, which would help increase the abysmal birth rates of many western countries as having a child becomes more beneficial/less of a burden. Parents are generally considered as having more stake in the long term future of society too, so giving greater political power to them would shift society towards more long term thinking too, which is sorely lacking at the moment.
Parents tend to be more conservative than childless people, controlling for all the usual factors. Giving them extra voting power would almost certainly shift the Overton window rightwards. Expect to see greater focus on tackling crime, nicer neighbourhoods and better schools if such a policy comes to pass.
At the moment the age of the median voter is significantly higher than the average age of the population as whole. This leads to greater emphasis being placed on the concerns of the old disproportionately, see for example the UK where attacking the entitlements of the old (pensions, high house prices etc.) is effectively a no-go area, as whichever party does this is certain to take a drubbing at the next election. Giving children the vote via their parents would fix this issue, the age of the median voter (controlled for vote power) would come down a fair bit, thus shifting political focus away from the concerns of the old towards the concerns of those of childbearing age.
Equally at the moment in many western countries due to demographic differences in age cohorts minorities have significantly less voting power than you would expect given their share of the population. This is due to minorities being disproportionately minors (pun not intended) who don't get the vote. Thus current political focus is disproportionately focused on placating whites. Such a change would hand more power to minorities in the country allowing them to push for policies that are best for themselves and their children, rather than just what white progressives say are best for themselves and their children. Doing this basically just pushes the voting demographics of a country forward by 18 years, it's going to happen anyways, might as well just accept it now even if you are white.
And children themselves probably benefit the most from such a policy. Parents generally put great emphasis on giving the best possible start to their children, and many already vote accordingly to what they believe is going to be best for them. Amplifying their voices relative to the childless will probably lead to these children entering a world more suited for them when they reach adulthood than presently.
Basically no matter whether you are conservative or liberal, white or a minority, young or old, giving votes to the parents of children is a policy that has something to offer you.
This is the part I disagree with. Much of the benefit of giving a parent the extra vote weight is the investment and stability. Only married parents should get the extra vote.
If you want to get a divorce after having kids, you've proven your future planning unreliable enough. and if you're kids are already harmed by your (or your spouse's) bad decisions, you shouldn't have the benefit of sharing that with the rest of the country.
I think stable marriages is probably a stronger lever than number of children, and would largely mitigating @Walerodim 's hesitation.
My proposal would be something like:
No voting under 26 unless you are married.
If you are married your vote counts 1.5 extra
If you ever divorce your vote reduces to .75, and remarriage doesn't affect this
After age 40, if you are married and did not have children with your spouse, your 1.5 reduces back to 1
After age 60 your vote reduces to 1 regardless.
Obviously that's too complicated to be realistic, but why not throw it out there for fun.
Not to keep ragging on you, but does it give you any pause that your proposal massively advantages your own community in terms of political power while disenfranchising those you dislike? Are you impartially proposing something that would better society or do you have a fairly significant conflict of interest?
It would be like me proposing that only people with advanced degrees could vote and rationalizing it in technocratic terms about how we're the most capable, intelligent, whatever parts of society. A master's degree gets you one vote, a PhD gets you 5, people with dual degrees (MD/PhD, etc) get 10, whatever. Sounds plausible, but do you trust me?
It gives me no pause because I don't think it's seriously under consideration. If this was turned into a formal proposal tomorrow to be voted on at a Constitutional Convention, I can assure you I would regret the haste at which I spit out the content of my post.
I do trust that you would find that more aligned with particular object policies that you find better, and would be relieved that you were finally discussing the particulars of policy outcomes at such a level instead of the self-referential fetish over democracy as it's own end entirely.
I would likely disagree with your policy outcomes, and after going back and forth, you and I would settle on everyone getting a vote as a decent and fair compromise. But unlike the real you, we wouldn't think that the compromise was in itself the thing.
It has nothing to do with disenfranchising "those" I dislike and the fact that you read it so, is frustratingly uncharitable. This isn't a political test or a race requirement or anything like that. Almost anyone can become married and have kids. Those who chose to have more vested interest in the long term stability of the system.
it is about disenfranchising outcomes I dislike, which, by the way everybody wants. Everybody wants the things they value to be popular and the things they find bad to be suppressed. You do as well.
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