Age limits for elected public officials? No, there’s a much better way! Why the phrase “Ninja Gaiden” should appear in the U.S. Constitution.

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Background:

Many countries today have incredibly old leaders. This isn’t a problem per se, but as elected representatives (and un-elected dictators) reach their 80s and 90s, the likelihood of them not being mentally sharp enough to reliably run a country greatly increases.

Most people would be skeptical of allowing a 10-year-old to run a country, but are strangely content to continually elect 90-year-olds.

Some countries also have arbitrary cutoffs for officeholders: for example, the U.S. president must be at least 35 years old. This is quite arbitrary: would a 34-year-old be obviously unqualified?

Proposal:

What we need is a fair and totally unbiased way of determining whether an individual is suitable for public office. Instead of just a minimum age requirement (and possible maximum age limit), we would ideally have a totally objective method of assessing mental competence.

That’s where classic video games of the 1980s come in: these games are notoriously quite difficult, but most of them are eventually manageable by any competent adult.

Thus, the solution is simple: if a person wants to be eligible for a public office, they will have to demonstrate, as part of the swearing-in process, that they can beat a specific classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game, tailored to the office in question.

Let’s look at how the U.S. Constitution (Figure 1) would change for each position, if we replaced the age requirement with something better:

  • U.S. House of Representatives. Current requirement: Age ≥ 25. New requirement: must finish Super Mario Bros. 2.
  • U.S. Senate: Current requirement: Age ≥ 30. New requirement: must complete Mega Man 2.
  • U.S. President: Current requirement: Age ≥ 35. New requirement: the presidential and vice-presidential candidates must work together to win the two-player co-op game Contra. Both candidates must make it to the end, or else only the remaining one may be sworn in (as president). In recognition of the ethical and moral flexibility that is often demonstrated by holders of this office, candidates are permitted to use a cheat code to gain 30 lives.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have an age requirement, but it’s still important that the members of this body retain some degree of mental competency. We will merely require that they annually demonstrate that they can reach level 10 in the NES version of Dr. Mario. This is basically the video game equivalent of showing that you know how to tie your own shoes.
Fig. 1: By enshrining Dr. Mario, Tetris, Ninja Gaiden, and other classic games in the U.S. Constitution, future generations of voters would also gain more respect for these classics, which should help increase civic virtue.

Conclusion:

This system would remove all age requirements entirely, and would allow competence in these specific games (Figure 2) to be the sole arbiter of election-worthiness.

Fig. 2: If someone is eligible to decide the laws that apply to 300+ million people, they should also be able to competently play a few levels of Dr. Mario (top). Similarly, senators are entrusted with great power and responsibility, and should, at minimum, be able to beat Mega Man 2 (bottom). 

This is a good idea that would prevent the surprisingly common situation where a particular candidate is elected but the office is actually run by their aides / a spouse / who-even-knows.

PROS: Makes elections even fairer: now even a youthful 34-year-old could be eligible for president, if their Contra skills were up to par.

CONS: None! This idea would definitely have been in the original Constitution, if it had been written 200 years later.

Originally published 2025-08-11.