The 26th amendment gives U.S. citizens who are 18 years old or older the right to vote in elections. Congress passed this amendment on March 31, 1971 and ratified it into the Constitution on July 1, 1971. During World War II, the argument over reducing the voting age from 21 to 18 was a long-debated topic that continued over to the Vietnam War. This debate started because men who were under the age of 21 were denied voting rights but were being enlisted to fight for the United States. While the U.S. was dealing with World War II, the president at the time which was Franklin D. Roosevelt decreased the military draft age to 18 years old. The slogan for the youth voting rights movement became “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote”. In 1943, …show more content…
Mitchell (deals with setting voting age) The supreme court case Oregon v. Mitchell relates with the 26th amendment because the case dealt with the issues on voting age limits. The case began in 1970 because Congress passed the Voting Right Act Amendments which reduced the voting age in local and state elections from 21 to 18. The states of Oregon, Arizona, Texas, and Idaho all sued and made an argument that those amendments violated the rights the Constitution secured for the states. The state of Oregon refused to reduce the voting age and filed a suit that the act was unconstitutional. The respondent was John Mitchell and his role was the United States Attorney General. The Justice Hugo L. Black announce the opinion of the 5-4 majority. The Court felt like Congress had the power to change the voting age for federal elections and abolish state residency requirements for the presidential and vice president election; however, they also felt as if reducing the voting age for local and state elections were beyond congressional purview. The court used Article I section 4 of the Constitution and the Necessary and Proper Clause to give states the power to create laws that govern elections and for Congress to be able to make changes to the law if it was necessary. They use the legislative history of the approval and enforcement of the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments to support that Congress played a role in avoiding racial discrimination in the electorate without denying the states their