Twenty-sixth Amendment (Supreme Court interpretations)
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was a significant legislative response to the social and political context of the Vietnam War, particularly the debate surrounding the voting age. This amendment, ratified on July 1, 1971, established that citizens who are eighteen years or older have the right to vote in federal, state, and local elections. The push for this change emerged from the argument that if young individuals were old enough to be drafted into military service, they should also possess the right to participate in the democratic process through voting.
Prior to the amendment, the Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1970 attempted to lower the voting age, but the Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Mitchell complicated matters by ruling that while the voting age could be set at eighteen for federal elections, it was unconstitutional for states to apply the same rule. This inconsistency prompted Congress to propose the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which aimed to standardize the voting age across all levels of government. Remarkably, the amendment's ratification process was the fastest in U.S. history, taking only 107 days. The Twenty-sixth Amendment is a landmark achievement in expanding voting rights and reflects broader societal shifts toward recognizing the political agency of younger citizens.
Twenty-sixth Amendment (Supreme Court interpretations)
Date: 1971
Description: Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen in federal, state, and local elections.
Significance: In a 1970 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a state statute that allowed eighteen-year-olds to vote in federal elections but struck down the provision in the statute that allowed them to vote in state elections. The Twenty-sixth Amendment eliminated this discrepancy.
As an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ensured equal voting rights for members of all minorities, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1970, which lowered the minimum voting age in federal, state, and local elections to age eighteen. The drive to lower the voting age was the result of the Vietnam War and the draft, which began at age eighteen. Supporters of a lower voting age argued that if people were old enough to be drafted and go to war, they were old enough to vote.
The Supreme Court found that parts of this measure were unconstitutional. In Oregon v. Mitchell(1970), the Court, by a 5-4 vote, held that the statute was constitutional for federal elections; however, in a different 5-4 vote, it found this same provision to be unconstitutional for state elections.
Confronted with the inconvenience of maintaining two sets of registration books and holding separate election systems for federal elections, Congress proposed the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which would require federal, state, and local governments to set their minimum voting age at eighteen, on March 23, 1971, and the amendment was ratified on July 1, 1971. The total time required for this amendment to be ratified 107 days is the shortest in U.S. history.