Amendment 26 — Overview Of Twenty Sixth Amendment Reduction Of Voting Age

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

Section 1:

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2:

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying or abridging, on the basis of age, the voting rights of U.S. citizens who are at least 18 years old. The Amendment effectively lowered the minimum voting age to 18 for all federal, state, and local elections.. At least some of the Amendment’s framers contemplated that a state might lower its minimum voting age below 18 by exercising its power to set voter qualifications. See generally, e.g., U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1; 117 Cong. Rec. 7535 (1971) (statement of Rep. Poff). ") Section 2 of the Amendment grants Congress the power to enforce the prohibitions in Section 1 by enacting “appropriate legislation.” The Supreme Court has not decided any cases definitively interpreting the Twenty-Sixth Amendment ,">Symm v. United States, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the judgment of a three-judge district court, which had enjoined a Texas county voter registrar’s discriminatory use of a complex residency questionnaire for certain prospective student voters living on college campuses. The questionnaire required the students to demonstrate their intent to remain in the county after graduation in order to register to vote. The lower court held this to be a violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment as enforced under Title III of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, and the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s judgment without a written opinion.

439 U.S. 1105, 1105 (1979), summarily aff’g United States v. Texas, 445 F. Supp. 1245, 1257–58, 1261 (S.D. Tex. 1978); see also Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 784 n.5 (1983) (observing that a summary affirmance does not necessarily imply the Supreme Court’s endorsement of the lower court’s reasoning). ")

Symm v. United States

, the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the judgment of a three-judge district court, which had enjoined a Texas county voter registrar’s discriminatory use of a complex residency questionnaire for certain prospective student voters living on college campuses. The questionnaire required the students to demonstrate their intent to remain in the county after graduation in order to register to vote. The lower court held this to be a violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment as enforced under Title III of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, and the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s judgment without a written opinion.

439 U.S. 1105 , 1105 (1979)

, summarily aff’g

United States v. Texas,

445 F. Supp. 1245, 1257–58, 1261 (S.D. Tex. 1978)

; see also

Anderson v. Celebrezze,

460 U.S. 780 , 784 n.5 (1983)

(observing that a summary affirmance does not necessarily imply the Supreme Court’s endorsement of the lower court’s reasoning). but lower courts have occasionally confronted questions about the Amendment’s scope since its 1971 ratification.; whether a state may make it easier for adult voters in a particular age group (e.g., adults over the age of 65) to vote without abridging the Twenty-Sixth Amendment rights of other age groups of adult voters; and the standard of review that applies to Twenty-Sixth Amendment claims). ")

The Constitution originally deferred to each state’s determination of who could vote in federal and state elections and did not prohibit the states from restricting citizens’ eligibility to vote on the basis of age. Many Founding-era state constitutions, laws, and customs limited voting privileges to White men who were at least 21 years of age and owned a certain amount of property, among other qualifications. In the nation’s early years—and even well into the twentieth century—many Americans believed that a minimum voting age of 21 was necessary to ensure that voters would possess sufficient independence and “sound judgment.” Although the Fourteenth Amendment , ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, appeared to recognize that all of the states had adopted 21 as the minimum voting age at the time,. ") the issue of voter age qualifications did not receive significant nationwide attention until the United States entered World War II in the 1940s.

Shortly after the United States entered the war, Congress lowered the minimum draft age to 18 through successive amendments to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. These amendments prompted some public officials to question why 18- to 20-year-old men serving in the nation’s Armed Forces could not vote in federal or state elections. Alluding to this perceived contradiction, the slogan “old enough to fight, old enough to vote” became popular among proponents of lowering the voting age during the war.

In the decades after World War II, public support for lowering the minimum voting age grew as Americans questioned why young soldiers fighting in Korea and Vietnam could not exercise the franchise. Additionally, many policymakers contended that 18- to 20-year-olds had earned the right to vote by demonstrating sufficient knowledge, responsibility, and maturity. In the midst of campus protests against the Vietnam War, some Members of Congress argued that conferring the franchise on young voters would allow them to express their views peacefully within the political process.

When extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 1970, Congress included a provision lowering the age qualification to vote in all elections—federal, state, and local—to eighteen.. ") In a divided decision in the 1970 case Oregon v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court held that Congress was empowered to lower the age qualification in federal elections, but voided its attempt to lower the minimum voting age in all other elections as beyond congressional power.">

400 U.S. 112, 117–19 (1970). ")

400 U.S. 112 , 117–19 (1970)

. …