Votes for babies

The Guardian has an article arguing that babies should have the vote. Well, all children. In other words, no age restriction. As soon as you leave the womb, you're allowed to help choose which party should rule the country for the next four years.
   It's easy to mock, but I don't object to the principle. The problem comes in practice: the most popular version of the scheme involves proxy votes, and I don't believe in proxy votes. There's already too much contracting-out going on in modern politics. Would a person be able to get ten votes rather than one, by having ten children?
   But my main problem with the suggestion is the claim there's evidence that ...

... larger electorates produce better decisions.

I don't see how it would be possible to get objective data to support that claim. Who is going to judge that a decision is 'better'?
   One of the problems of modern democracy is surely that electorates are already too large: there's too many voters. No one feels they have sufficient power to make a difference simply through voting; hence we get voter apathy — also caused by the fact that there isn't enough genuine choice on offer.
   I suggest drastically restricting voter numbers. Ensure that each person privileged to vote feels there's a really important decision at stake. How about this: allocate, by lottery, seven (yes, seven) votes in each electoral district to people who want to be considered for the role (including precocious 9-year-olds and other interested children). For a week, this team of seven people would consult with the political candidates, and with one another. Ideally, they also engage with other residents of the district, via social media or in person. At the end, they each vote anonymously for their preferred candidate.
   Might help to concentrate the mind, and make people feel something important was at stake.