Should the voting age be 16?

If someone can be drafted, they should be able to vote

Question: Should the voting age be 16?
Position‹2 of 3›: No, the voting age is fine as it is
Argument‹3 of 3: If someone can be drafted, they should be able to vote

If one can be forced to fight in a war, one should be able to help shape their country.

The argument

The argument is about consistency between the obligations a state imposes and the rights it grants. This is an old one, but still relevant today, because the draft still exists: the Selective Service Act requires all males, beginning at age 18, to register for it. That registration is not a formality of the same kind as any other. It places a person on a list from which they may be called to serve, and in the event of a war to die. From this the argument draws a straightforward conclusion. If one is old enough to die for their country, they should be able to vote. The state has already made a judgement about the age at which a person becomes answerable to it in the most serious way available, and having made that judgement it cannot coherently treat the same person as too young to have a say in how the country that may call on them is governed. The vote and the obligation belong together at whatever age the obligation begins, and eighteen is where the state has fixed it. The argument then turns to what would be lost by separating the two. Taking a young person's ability to vote may take away the pride and civic duty they feel for their country, because the two reinforce one another: permission to vote alongside the registration of the draft instils a sense of major responsibility that arrives with both at the same moment. That pairing is held to be one a sixteen-year old cannot yet understand, since no comparable obligation attaches at that age and there is nothing for the right to be the counterpart of. On this account the alignment of draft registration and the franchise at eighteen is not an accident to be corrected, but the reason the voting age is fine as it is.

Premises

[P1]At 18, men must register for the draft and can be called to die for their country. [P2] Anyone old enough to be drafted to die for their country should be old enough to vote. [P3] Tying the vote to draft registration at 18 instils a civic responsibility a sixteen-year-old cannot yet grasp. [C] Therefore, because the draft and the vote rightly align at 18, the voting age is fine as it is.

Counter-arguments

Although the draft still exists, it's not as relevant as it once was. Perhaps it may be in the future, but in today's terms it makes no sense to base the minimum age to vote after the age of draft registration.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Registering for the draft is not a declaration of patriotism. [Rejecting P2] Voting is a right, not an act of patriotism.