The 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage was earlier this week, but this isn’t directly related.
A grant of suffrage privileges implies a claim ownership places on the grantee, by the state appratus. The state enters into an agreement with the voter that he casts his vote free of coercion or accountability, and in turn the state agrees to act as the ruling apparatus for the voter. In this, the suffrage privileges exercised imply a consent to accept being “ruled over.” Suffrage privileges granted on the basis of fee simple land ownership ensures that only those that retain the title of ownership of land has the voting privilege, and would presume to vote on behalf of the land’s occupants as well. Suffrage on these terms allows for a “natural order” of accountability to come about, as in the case of children to parents, as children to do not have the suffrage rights. So then those who hold suffrage privileges are accountable to the state apparatus for those living under his “rule.” Granting suffrage privileges on the basis of age of majority, on the other hand, removes any natural order of accountability and rulership that could occur (like the child-to-parent order, or any kind of legally-binding agreement people could devise), and instead immediately places the state apparatus as the (heavily implied) ruler of anyone of the age of majority, automatically and immediately. One may choose what kind of subject-ruler relationship they’d prefer under the simple-fee model, where the universal suffrage model removes that choice absolutely and without the subject’s consent.