Well, if it's propaganda, they wouldn't believe what they say by definition. But, I'm curious, you say "the fallacy of a universal "right" to vote." Voting should not be a "right?" Should it be mandatory? In some countries it's mandatory? How would a democracy or even a republic function if only certain people had the right to vote? It would, then, be an oligarchy by definition.

@TyKC yeah, I guess if they do actually believe it then they're not really the "propagandists" in the equation. What do we call those who have been propagandized? How about: Intellectual Victims?
They're not the cult leaders... they're just the ones handing out pamphlets at the airport.
I guess that's sort of my point... I don't know which is more frightening, the Cult or the crazy guy serving the Kool-Aid.

Universal suffrage is how a Democracy works, and that is exactly why the framework of our Republic did not include it.

I posted this reply a while back, let me just paste it here and invite your opinion:

In my opinion, only taxpayers should vote.

No Taxation without Representation, suggests a logical counterpart:
No Representation without Taxation.

The universal 'right' to vote is a misguided Collectivist notion that approximates mob-rule, and was never the intent of the Founders. It simply doesn't work... I mean... look around.

The first argument against voter eligibility criteria is always: "that's discrimination!!"
Yes. Yes it is.
Voting is presently considered a civil right; i.e., a "right" bestowed by the government... which, by it's very nature, is just another term for a privilege.
Privileges have qualifying criteria. All qualifying criteria for anything, anywhere, any time, constitute 'discrimination'... that's what they're for, to discriminate between those who qualify and those who don't.
There's nothing "bad" about discrimination in and of itself, that's just another concept hijacked by Progressives to use as a blunt object against rational thought. Discrimination is bad when bad people use erroneous criteria to impose their will on a targeted group.
That's why we recognize actual rights for everyone, guaranteed to be protected by the very same gov't we're funding with taxes; which is one of the reasons that it's very important whether it operates correctly and effectively. Erroneous criteria that targeted any group for exclusion from any privilege, would violate their right to equal treatment, and would therefore be inappropriate discrimination.
That's not an argument against criteria categorically, just one against erroneous criteria with malicious intent.

Government is a man-made system, it works however we say it works.
We have no natural rights within that system. Our natural rights transcend gov't entirely, which is the only reason that the gov't has no rights of its own to violate them.
Voting is merely one of the man-made mechanisms within the gov't. As such, how effectively the mechanism functions will ultimately impact the effectiveness of the gov't itself, and of the society for which it was established.
Voting was originally established as a privilege afforded to property owners. The presumption was that people with a stake in the community would both have, and predominately act upon, the realization that responsible stewardship of the community is in everybody's best-interest, including their own... even at the expense of any of their more superficial self-interests.
People with no skin in the game aren't affected by the costs of (ostensibly) nurturing the common good. As such, they have no direct interest in responsible stewardship. Their only operative concern is, "what's in it for me?"
They are, of course, quite capable of voting responsibly anyway... but they are not incentivized to do so. People will, by and large, follow incentive over principle, if they can be convinced to simply dismiss the principle as misguided, with the deceptive and prodding rationalizations of those who stand to benefit; in this case, collectivists.
They'll vote to consume public resources (other people's money) in whatever way they believe will benefit them the most, regardless of the cost to liberty or to wallets, because it's not their liberty or wallets that are being pillaged. This is how we end up $22+T in debt, ~70% of the budget (and growing) going to social programs, and the never-ending drumbeat demanding that it's still not enough (it never will be enough.)

I don't, however, think that property ownership is the best criteria, at least not anymore. The easiest relevant measure of participation and contribution to society that I can think of, is whether you pay taxes.
Of course someone who does not pay net taxes, may arguably contribute to society in any number of ways. But, those arguments would be subjective, and the ways intangible.
It's a common tenet of civilized society, that: If you're not chipping in for the pizza, you don't get to pick the toppings... just enjoy your free pizza.
If they've decided to contribute "in their own way" instead of pursuing the mundane path up the ladder of personal economic progress, that was their own decision. They're doing what they value, not what society values, necessarily. If they're not paying taxes, then they're still not chipping in for the pizza, no matter how you slice it. (see what I did there?)

The next argument you'll hear is that voting criteria, based on taxation as a measure of contribution to the community, effectively excludes poor people.
Yes. Yes it does.
The implication that excluding poor people is the secret reason for voting criteria in the first place, is another Progressive mantra that, again... ignores what is right and what works, in favor of what sounds nice and what they can thereby get away with in the interest of collectivism.
"Poor people" is not a static predetermined group, as it is invariably portrayed. If you are poor or rich, that isn't who you are, it merely describes the present state of your finances, which is likely to change. That's what is so fundamentally sacrosanct about equal opportunity. You don't have a right not to be among the poor, but you do have a recognized right to the same chance that anybody else has to work your way out of it.
By the time such an individual has established themselves as a contributing member of the community; they will have acquired knowledge, perspective, and experience that will help them to make voting decisions that are more likely to help other people do the same.

The related argument, that the rich will simply vote to keep the poor impoverished, is just more Progressive class-warfare propaganda that belies reason. Maximizing the number of poor people does nothing to help society or the taxpayer, quite the opposite.

Like all of the Progressives' other "good ideas", universal suffrage makes them sound like they care, so they defend it fanatically in spite of the damage it does. Universal suffrage sounds nice and fair, when in fact it is neither; just another giant step toward collectivism.
Sound public policy is not based on what sounds nice anyway, it's based on what works, constrained within the context of what is right.

Universal suffrage is not sound public policy.

@rway Well, if you limit voting to taxpayers that would include virtually everyone. If you've ever bought anything at a store, you've paid sales taxes in most states. If you own or rent property, you've paid taxes. If you've stay in a hotel or motel, you've paid taxes. If you've purchased gasoline or diesel, you've paid taxes. If you've used a cellphone or own a car of motor vehicle of any kind, you've paid taxes. That's why SCOTUS has simply said:

The constitutional requirement that House members be elected “by the People of the several States” eventually became the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that congressional districts must be as equal in population as possible (“one person, one vote&rdquo. Wesberry v. Sanders (1964). Moreover, the 15th, 19th and 21st amendments gave the right to vote to virtually everyone (citizen) over the age of 18, making it virtually politically impossible to deny a vote based on creed, culture or race. So that's what you see today, the only option left is just to make it as difficult as possible to vote, which is very artificial. Why would any government do that? So the strategy is: make it as easy as possible for people to vote if they are likely to vote for me, and make it as hard as possible to vote if they are unlikely to vote for me. It pretty much boils down to that.

Of course, this has not stopped the Gerrymandering. It's a conflict of interest to have Legislatures determine who gets to vote for them. Gerrymandered districts in most cases do not represent the interests of the citizens in the communities where they live. Most candidates of either party are expected to hold certain national ideological views and that's why they are nominated by their party and why they end up not representing the interests of the communities they are supposed to be serving.

As I see it, the problem is mostly education, not knowing how government works. Most people claim to know what's in the Constitution, but even a cursory examination proves that this is an illusion. Most people don't understand the first thing about it or, for that matter, much about the views or qualifications of the people running. Moreover, the people running for federal office are not required to know anything about the Constitution or even how government is suppose to function. The only requirements placed on them is that they be at least 25 years of age, be a citizen for at least 7 years and live in the district that they represent. It's a recipe for disaster.

In addition, there are serious problems with how the Senate is configured. It's built on the assumption that the population of the U.S. is evenly distributed throughout the Country. But about 80% of the people live within 150 miles of a large body of water, which includes Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes. That means that about 64 Senators represent about 20% of the people and roughly 36 Senators represent 80% of the population. That gives the Senate outsized power. This is chiefly why certain bills, while popular with the majority of people, cannot get passed, because of this imbalance.

@TyKC Thanks for the response.

I'm talking about your federal tax return, for federal elections. If you get it all (or more) back in April... then you didn't pay any taxes.
You don't get to deduct the taxes you paid on Snicker bars and motel rooms from your adjusted gross, those are different revenue streams.
When you buy gas, your return on the tax comes in the form of road maintenance (supposedly.) The same is true for all the myriad special-purpose taxes that you pay at every conceivable level, in every niche they can find to add a tax; where the taxes and fees are (again... supposedly) tied directly to the use of the product.
Of course money is fungible, and seldom if ever actually gets used in accordance with the excuse they use to collect it... but that's a different problem to solve.
And an easy one, too. See: House Resolution 25, FairTax.
How they run State and local elections are up to those municipalities, but I think they should follow the same model.
It's none of the SCOTUS' business, as long as the same rules apply to everyone without regard to the protected categories you mentioned; race, creed, gender, etc.... just like every other government function.

Gerrymandering is an easy fix, too, it's just that nobody actually wants to fix it.
The only objective way to lay out districts is in a simple grid, with resolution of the squares increasing as a function of population density. Too easy.

Senators do not represent any citizens, that's what Representatives are for.
Senators represent their respective States... two each; population is irrelevant.
The problem with the Senate, is the 17th Amendment. Senators are supposed to be in Washington working for their respective State Legislatures, who appointed them to the job.
Now that those elections have been nationalized, they each work for their respective Parties... because that is who got them the job. Consequently, the political Parties have dramatically more power, and the States themselves... dramatically less.

You're right about one thing: the root of all our problems is the nationalized education system, designed in the mid-1800's after the Prussian Model specifically and explicitly to produce dumb and misguided conformists.
But for as long as we continue to manage our society by loading-up as many of those same misguided conformists as SEIU can fit onto their buses, and herding them to the polls so they can "have their say" by out-voting the relatively small percentage of people who have somewhat of a clue and an actual stake in the outcome, then we'll never fix that problem.
And consequently... we'll never fix any of the others, either.

Hmmm. Is it just that democrat's are ineffective or is it because they have no clue. And if so, what would it take for them to get a clue. What it is that they are doing wrong? And in what direction should they go?

@TyKC The entrenched democrats that have held office for decades are interested in holding their office to keep getting the perks they have become used to, it is not that they are clueless. In the last election they managed to wrest power from young democrats who had some reasonable and achievable ideas that would have resonated with many voters. For the last 30 years the "old school" have been pushing the same tired ideas that keep them safe in office but do very little for their constituents. They are willing to kill the Democratic party to keep their power a little longer. The young Democrats that have fresh ideas will not be able to make their move until 2024, which will probably be too late because Republicans will probably have their voting rules locked in by then.

@Pand0ro If that's really true, then whose fault is that? Young people are notoriously uninterested in voting. They vote at historically low levels when compared with other age groups. The voting rules are a problem, but so far they've been largely enacted in States that would vote red anyway, but they are still a problem. I'm surprised there are not more legal challenges to them.