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Mormons would probably be psyched. The Republican Party less so.

I’m talking about what would happen if we embraced the idea, proposed by Donald Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance—isn’t he funny?—of empowering families by giving parents of young children an extra vote for each child.

Besides being likely unconstitutional (see the unanimous 2016 Supreme Court ruling in Evenwel v. Abbott, which upheld the 14th Amendment principle of “one person, one vote”) such a policy would be difficult to implement. Who gets the extra votes if there’s an odd number of kids and/or the parents are estranged or have opposing views? Who votes on behalf of stepkids—do they count? Adoptees? How about kids living with their grandparents? Noncitizen parents? Parents with Green Cards? Could undocumented parents vote on behalf of US-born offspring? And how would you verify all of it?

To be fair, in an interview over the weekend, Vance clarified that his proposal was simply a “thought experiment.” Okay then! Let’s think it through.

Assuming this proposal were legal and workable, whom would it benefit? Certainly the Mormons, who are known for prolific procreation (in 2014, according to a Pew Research report, Mormon couples ages 40-59 had an average of 3.4 children vs. 2.2 for all Christians and 2.1 nationally—they also famously have a history of having too many spouses. Mormons tend to be conservative and vote Republican. But only about 1.2 percent of........

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