Amendment XXVI

Amendment XXVI
“The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.”

Section 1 says the legal voting age is 18.
Section 2 says that Congress has to make laws to enforce this amendment

The lowering of the legal voting age was pushed greatly when the draft occurred and young men were beginning to be drafted into the army at the age of 18. The thought was that if these young men were old enough to fight for their country in a war, then they should be able to legal vote in their country. I think that’s a logical declaration, I mean, they have to answer to the President because that is their commander-in-chief, so why shouldn’t they have a right to decide? Not to mention making life changing decisions while in war. I’m glad the legal voting age is 18, because that’s the age when we graduate form high school, and when we are technically considered adults, so why not ensure that our voice is heard in the country we are now heading out into. Many have tried to say that since the voting age is 18, then an 18-year-old should also be allowed to drink. Personally, voting does not pose the life-or-death risk that drinking does if handled immaturely, and so therefore I think that an 18-year-old is not mature enough to handle responsible drinking, 21-year-olds barely can.



This video is a PSA done by some of the actors from TV show, One Tree Hill about the “Rock the Vote” campaign encouraging people to vote. This video is aimed at young adults, which is why the video includes pop culture role models and figures that young adults with admire and recognize. I included this video because I feel it’s important that the right to vote be extended to young adults at age 18 because they are old enough to serve in a war and old enough to have a voice in politics. Special attention is paid to targeting teens in advertisements for voting. This PSA displays the attention paid to making sure that teens go out an exercise their right to vote.



This video explains how to register to vote, and that you have to give your original signature in order to vote. I included this video because this is the first step any person must complete before they are able to vote in an election. This is especially true for teens and I believe that if we continue to insist on young adults getting registered and then voting, there will be more young adult representation. There was a lot of encouragement of young adults voting during the 2008 election, and there was a remarkable turnout among young adults and I believe that same momentum is achieved in future elections, voting among teens will become the norm.