Sec. 3. Findings
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Congress finds the following: Over 50 years ago, on July 1, 1971, this Nation ratified into the Constitution of the United States the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years of age and outlawing the denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of age. Support for the 26th Amendment was nearly unanimous. The proposed constitutional amendment passed with bipartisan supermajorities, passing in the Senate with a vote of 94–0, and passing in the House of Representatives with a vote of 401–19.
The 26th Amendment was approved by the requisite 38 States in less than 100 days, making it the quickest constitutional amendment to be ratified in United States history. Support for lowering the voting age to 18 was championed across the aisle. President Dwight Eisenhower, former Commander of the Allied Forces, included the issue in his 1954 State of the Union Address. Moreover, President Richard Nixon emphasized his support for the 26th Amendment during its certification ceremony, describing that young people serve a critical role by infusing the practice of democracy with some idealism, some courage, some stamina, some high moral purpose that this Nation always needs, because a country, throughout history, we find, goes through ebbs and flows of idealism. .
Similarly, Senate majority leader Michael Mansfield and Senator Ted Kennedy were key advocates of the measure, having first proposed a statutory route for lowering the voting age in the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 ( Public Law 91–285 ), in addition to supporting a path through constitutional ratification. The Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 ( Public Law 91–285 ) marked the first Federal law to enfranchise youth and outlaw age discrimination in accessing the franchise.
In title III of that Act, Congress declared, with strong bipartisan support, that the 21-year age requirement— denies and abridges the inherent constitutional rights of citizens eighteen years of age but not yet twenty-one years of age to vote ; has the effect of denying those disenfranchised the due process and equal protection of the laws that are guaranteed to them under the Fourteenth Amendment ; and does not bear a reasonable relationship to any compelling State interest. .
The age-based expansion of the franchise via the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 was ultimately found by a strongly divided Supreme Court to be unconstitutional as applied to State and local races and constitutional as applied to Federal races. Thus, to ensure uniform election administration in Federal and State races, a constitutional solution was required. A variety of reasons were advanced to support ratification of the 26th Amendment. The emerging themes included— the value of idealism, courage, and moral purpose that youth provide in reenergizing the practice of democracy; the increased political competence of young people compared to prior generations, due to greater access to information through standardized education and technology such as then-widely available television sets; the increased responsibilities assumed by the group as they fought in war, assumed debt, and lived independently; a general recognition of the Nation’s expansion toward a more inclusive suffrage; and the stemming of unrest by encouraging institutionalized mechanisms to advance change.
In referring the 26th Amendment to the States for ratification, Congress invoked the Voting Rights Act and the principles protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, explaining that [F]orcing young voters to undertake special burdens-obtaining absentee ballots, or traveling to one centralized location in each city, for example-in order to exercise their right to vote might well serve to dissuade them from participating in the election. This result, and the election procedures that create it, are at least inconsistent with the purpose of the Voting Rights [A]ct, which sought to encourage greater political participation on the part of the young; such segregation might even amount to a denial of their 14th Amendment right to equal protection of the laws in the exercise of the franchise. .
According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (referred to in this Act as CIRCLE ) of Tufts University, a record-high 28 percent of young people voted in the 2018 midterm elections, more than doubling the record-low 13 percent youth turnout in 2014. Still, young people vote at lower levels than older adults. Lower youth voting rates are not a sign of generational apathy but of systemic barriers and issues with the culture of political engagement that have plagued young people of various generations for decades.
Individuals that were part of older generations voted at similar rates as individuals in the Millennial and Gen Z generations when those older generations were youth. For the first presidential election in which a generation’s entire 18–24 age cohort was eligible to vote (1972 for Boomers, 1992 for Gen X, and 2008 for Millennials), each participated at about 50 percent. The outsized reliance by young voters on provisional ballots in recent years demonstrates the structural obstacles young voters face due to voter restrictions.
A 2016 survey found that 1 in 4 Millennials voted provisionally in the 2016 race, compared to 6 percent of Baby Boomers, and 2 percent of the Greatest Generation. In addition to voting provisionally at disproportionate rates, young voters’ provisional ballots are also disproportionally rejected. As determined by a recent Federal court, voters aged 18 to 21 in Florida had their provisional ballots rejected at a rate more than 4 times higher than the rejection rate for provisional ballots cast by voters between the ages of 45 to 64.
Similarly, young voters experience a higher rejection rate of vote-by-mail ballots compared to older voters. One study found that voters aged 18 to 21 had their vote-by-mail ballots rejected at a rate of over 5 times that of voters between the ages of 45 to 64 and over 8 times those over the age of 65. These rejection rates trend with those of voters of color. For example, the study found that the rate of rejection of vote-by-mail ballots for Hispanic and African American voters is over 2 times that of White voters.
Moreover, when special burdens are removed, young people vote more frequently. Once polling places were finally situated on campuses during the early voting period, pursuant to successful 26th Amendment litigation, one study found that on 12 campuses alone, nearly 60,000 registered voters participated in the 2018 general election through early in-person voting. Young voters, people of color, and those who did not cast a ballot in 2016 disproportionately voted at the on-campus voting locations.
Voter turnout is bolstered by on-campus voting locations because those locations lower the opportunity costs for voting for all registered voters, particularly for young registered voters. Young people are passionate about political issues and often want to engage in the political process, but they face barriers to participation. For example, they may face structural obstacles such as proof requirements that obscure a young person's right to vote, barriers to voter registration, inaccessible or poorly equipped polling places, campus gerrymanders, over-reliance on provisional ballots, unequal access to vote-by-mail, and unfair treatment of provisional and vote-by-mail ballots.
Some of these barriers are acute for the youngest voters who are particularly transient and move every year, thereby struggling to update their voter registration, or who are less likely to have a driver’s license to use as voter identification. Youth voters are similarly vulnerable to confusion about their right to vote from their campus residences. Although the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the right of college students to vote from their campus residences in 1979, pursuant to the 26th Amendment, misinformation, disinformation, and legal challenges persist about this right.
Congress finds that students indeed have a right to vote from their campus residences. Relatedly, many young people have not been taught about elections and voting, including the practicalities of registering and casting a ballot and the reasons why their voices and votes matter in democracy. Seven States restrict access to vote-by-mail on account of age, allowing voters above a certain age to vote with no excuse, and requiring that voters below 60 or 65 meet a narrow list of excuses to vote-by-mail.
In those States, voters 65 and older comprise nearly 65 percent of all at-home ballots, whereas the use of at-home ballots is more evenly distributed across age cohorts in States without the age-restriction. In age-discriminatory vote-at-home States, 21 percent of adults over 65 voted at home in 2018, but less than 6 percent of voters 18–34 did so. Congress further finds that eligible voters, including youth, have the right to vote by mail in Federal elections free of prima facie age restrictions.
Studies reinforce the habit-forming nature of voting, making it all the more important that voting becomes normalized at an early age through unobstructed access to the ballot. For example, a recent study found that on average, voting in 1 election increases the probability of voting in a future election by 10 percentage points. According to CIRCLE, youth without college experience also tend to vote at lower rates than young people in college. For example, in 2018, 28 percent of youth (ages 18–29) voted, while the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education of Tufts University estimated that 40 percent of college students cast a ballot.
There are disparities by age, and even among youth; the youngest group (ages 18 and 19) vote at lower rates. There are also disparities by urbanicity, with young people in rural areas and other civic deserts having lower voter turnout. According to CIRCLE, low-income youth are acutely impacted, since their economic struggles translate into multiple logistical barriers to voting. A recent survey of low-income youth found that young voters reported barriers to voting, including— confusion with voter identification rules (88 percent); confusion about the impact of voter disenfranchisement (42 percent reported lack of clarity about whether someone who paid a fine for driving under the influence could vote or if someone with a suspended driver’s license could vote); confusion about the location of polling places (39 percent did not know where to vote); and a high lack of confidence that they would be fully prepared to vote if an election happened next week (only half of surveyed youth reported confidence).
Moreover, youth reported negative voting experiences due to failure to see young people working at the polls (87 percent), failure to see poll workers that look like them (74 percent), and not believing that election officials make an effort to ensure that people like them can vote (59 percent). Presidential election years are particularly consequential for youth voter engagement. For example, 61 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were registered to vote in 2008, compared to 49 percent in 2010.
Moreover, youth who registered to vote are considerably more likely to vote. Among youth registered in 2008, 84 percent cast a ballot. While direct youth voter registration, outreach, and engagement is typically heightened in the Summer and Fall months leading up to presidential elections, unprecedented obstacles presented themselves amid the COVID–19 pandemic as the economy slowed, the Nation shut down, and institutions of higher education, technical and vocational schools, and high schools, along with county election offices, changed their normal operations.
The 2020 primary cycle shed light on the unique obstacles faced by young voters in uncertain times as they were displaced from the college domiciles where they would eventually return. Confused and misinformed about their right to vote from campus despite the temporary relocation, these voters had to adjust for the first time to obtaining, printing, properly filling out and submitting along with required proofs, and mailing postage-required official forms and paperwork, such as voter registration forms, absentee ballot requests, and absentee ballots.
The 2020 election resulted in unprecedented voter turnout overall, boasting the highest turnout in United States history, with 17,000,000 more voters compared to the last presidential cycle. The unprecedented trend tracked for youth voters as well. 2020 was the first election in which the majority of voters under the age of 30 voted. States with the highest youth voter rates were those with more robust registration and vote by mail laws, such as those with pre-registration, same day registration, election day registration, early voting, and accessible no-excuse vote by mail opportunities.
The response to increased voter turnout has been an unprecedented number of State legislative proposals to make it harder to cast a valid ballot, such as the imposition of limitations on the availability of drop-boxes, limitations on the counting of out-of-precinct ballots, and the removal of student identification as valid voter identification where required. Pressures have also mounted on the local level, with continued efforts to prevent or remove on-campus polling locations, which are key to youth engagement since they allow students to vote where they study, work, eat, and sleep.
State and local election administration impacts youth at large, including high school youth in their ability to pre-register in advance of turning 18, college students matriculating in traditional public and private 2- or 4-year institutions of higher education or vocational and technical programs, and the most vulnerable or overlooked youth populations, such as those in less stable housing and those who do not pursue college education. The 14th and 26th Amendments, and the Elections Clause of section 4 of article I and Guarantee Clause of section 4 of article IV, of the Constitution empower Congress to protect the right to vote in Federal elections.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was always understood to be privately enforceable, and to contain a private right of action by which all voters of the United States could guarantee the rights guaranteed therein. Recently, in light of the continued development of the law concerning privately enforceable statutes, academic discussion and jurisprudential dicta have incorrectly questioned the Voting Rights Act of 1965’s private right of action. This Act and the amendments made by this Act recognize the hundreds of cases brought by private plaintiffs to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and re-affirms that such a private right of action has always existed for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
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- Pub. L. 91-285
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Sec. 3
Findings
Pub. L.Pub. L. 91-285
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