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And I have a value disagreement with the people like that: No, having one's interests represented in government is not a human right.
And, if it were a human right, it would follow that we urgently need some Congresscritters pumping up astrology, others fighting to recriminalize adultery, others defunding traditional medicine and subsidizing homeopathy and acupuncture, and still others demanding free alcohol for all teenagers. People's interests (as they see them) are very diverse.
It should be a citizen right (with some citizenship being a human right, of course).
Restricting the franchise is a slippery slope. You start with heroin addicts. You move through other drugs. Then why should alcoholics vote? People with mental illnesses? How about people in unemployment programs, if they can't manage their lives well, why should we trust them to manage the country? And are students studying on the goverment's dime really that different? While we are at it, should we not classify an IQ below 90 as a mental illness for the purpose of having fewer dumb people vote?
The result would not be something we would call democracy, and would depend on which party is in power and can disenfranchise the voters of the other more effectively.
One adult citizen, one vote is a very defensible Schelling point. Yes, this means that less intelligent people will have more influence which will likely result in worse policy decisions, but that is a price worth paying to prevent an oligarchic system which would spawn otherwise.
(I am aware that felons are routinely disenfranchised, and don't particularly like it, but at least there is some due process involved.)
Personally, I am not interested in barring drunkards or junkies from voting. Ditto for the mentally ill and unemployed. Lord knows I have my vices and deficiencies.
But if you're too drunk, strung out, depressed, or otherwise incapable of getting an ID - or moving your body to a polling station, or requesting a mail-in ballot by normal means - then I see no reason why anybody should be giving you an 'assist' or pretend that that your vote is of any value beyond a stocking stuffer for an R/D candidate. You aren't being restricted from the franchise, you're just too lazy or unintetested to partake in it.
It's a low bar, and it doesnt perfectly solve the problem of 'people voting wrong' (whatever one thinks that is), but simply showing up out of your own volition is enough for me. If you truly feel you have a stake in the system, then these are trivial hurdles to clear. But if you're just waiting around for a canvasser to help you fill out a ballot and take it to a drop box because you couldn't get your crap together in a 4-year period, I can only be suspicious of anybody trying to ply your vote.
Every election year we're inundated with narratives about how it's so hard to vote in the US, and I just don't ever see it. And I hate how the 'low voter engagement' phenomenon was interpreted as a clarion call to herd cattle into voting booths - as opposed to an indictment of our two leading parties and their general governance. I bristle even more when somebody suggests legally-required voting.
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