Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal to raise the voting age and have people aged below 25 meet certain conditions to vote has received a surprising response on social media.
In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, ahead of a campaign event in Iowa, Ramaswamy suggested a constitutional amendment to voting laws.
He said: “We want to restore civic duty in the mindset of the next generation of Americans.”
Ramaswamy, a former biopharma entrepreneur who joined the Republican presidential fray in February, has made headlines for a number of proposals, including shutting down the FBI, abolishing the Department of Education, and a “total decoupling” from China.
A recent CBS News-YouGov poll of 2,372 U.S. adults that asked participants who they would vote for in the Republican presidential primary saw Ramaswamy receive 5 percent of the vote, well behind Donald Trump (58 percent) and Ron DeSantis (22 percent), who is yet to announce an expected bid for president.
Explaining his proposal, Ramaswamy said: “If you want to vote as an 18-year-old, between the ages of 18 and 25, you need to either do your civic duty through service to the country—that’s six months of service in either military service or [as a] first responder, including police, fire or otherwise—or else you have to pass the same civics test that an immigrant has to pass in order to become a naturalized citizen who can vote in this country.”
“At age 25, that falls away. So in a nutshell, what we are proposing is a constitutional amendment to raise the voting age to 25. “
Ramaswamy also highlighted this plan on his own Twitter page and received many comments supporting the move.
Twitter user Omar Ghaffar tweeted: “This is a great idea. My wife just became a citizen and I looked at that test pretty carefully and think it’s important for 18 year olds to know those answers. The high school education can easily be tailored to incorporate that.”
Another user, Zero State Reflex, agreed and added: “This is what our country needs. A narrative. Civic duty is caring about where we live…though can an exploitive system really allow, or amplify this type of participation?
“Why should young people care when they can’t progress along the civic path? Good job, good income, health care, housing…the decay in these sectors will make it a hard sell. I like the direction of it though.”
A third user, Zachstorylive, added: “That’s a great proposition. Doubt it will ever happen (good luck trying to change the constitution in our political climate) but it certainly has high merit.”
The 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution currently forbids states and the federal government from using age as a reason to deny American citizens aged 18 the right to vote.
Despite the surprising support for a change to this amendment, some social media users were critical of the proposal and likened it to voter suppression.
Twitter user DustyBottoms wrote: “This just seems like a really poor attempt to dampen and limit youth voices to a specific demographic of society. Two thumbs down.”
Another user added: “The bottom line is this, if Ramaswamy wanted an overall more informed electorate, the Civics test would be a mandatory thing for everyone regardless of age. This is just a voter suppression tactic of a demo that data says doesn’t vote for HIS party. Nothing more.”
Writer and podcast host Victor Shi also weighed in and said: “Holy s***. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy just said he wants to amend the constitution so 18-25-year-old voters will have to pass a ‘civics test’ before they can vote. Republicans are terrified of Gen Z — and their effort to silence us will not work.”
Newsweek has contacted Ramaswamy via his website for comment.