Eighteen Is Too Young to Vote

I teach at Yale, where the undergraduate elite is the best part of the university. These students are often more articulate, more conversable and more interesting than most of the professors. Students are a big reason why I (and others) stay at Yale when we could easily leave and might love to. But—it almost pains me to say—these superstars should not be allowed to vote. The law must change, and I can’t exclude my friends.

Age 21 has long been accepted as the start of adulthood. That’s where the American voting age had been, in most states and elections, until the federal standard was lowered to 18 in 1971 by the 26th Amendment—mainly because of the draft and the Vietnam War. Young men could be drafted and sent into battle but weren’t allowed to vote.

The emergency of Vietnam is long over—and adolescents today are dramatically unprepared to vote. At 21 they are still barely educated, because history and Western civilization are taught so badly at most of our schools and colleges. At least 21-year-olds have had years of experience as almost-adults. Many have dealt with real employers, real romances, complex institutions. And at least they are, mainly, far more mature than they were at 18. Follow any student from the start of freshman year to graduation: An enormous change takes place. Yet people refer to “college students” as if they were, developmentally, a homogeneous blob.

What harm is there in a lower voting age? It’s hard to pin down the effects and the influence of our youngest voters, who often don’t bother to vote anyway. Today’s 18-year-olds are worse-educated than teens in the 1960s. And in more cases than anyone would have believed a generation ago, today’s elected officials are grossly incompetent. Adolescent voters didn’t cause the problem but could hardly be helping. Today some elected officials can’t see why a city government should mind thuggish mobs destroying public monuments they don’t like, or stealing chunks of big cities and running them as they please. The modern left has suggested abolishing law enforcement as we know it. Great idea—and let’s outlaw crime too, while we’re up.

The U.S. has been painfully slow to clean up the wreckage of its 1960s cultural revolution, which knocked everything to the ground and caused crazy cracks everywhere. We have been living in this mess for half a century. Our schools and colleges are biased and teach poorly, but we don’t change them. Most of our cultural institutions, from movies and TV to newspapers, concert halls and museums, are biased, but we don’t change them. Even our churches and synagogues are often politically warped, but are seldom changed. Voting at 18 is only a minor leftover of the Stupid Age, but a new constitutional amendment could fix it.

If politicians had pulled any such trick when I was 18, I would have been mad as hell. I hope today’s 18-year-olds will be too. They’ve had enough coddling. First grow up, then vote.

Mr. Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale.