Once your teen is able to register, follow the guidelines suggested by your state. Because of the enormous impact of modern communications, especially television, our youth are extremely well informed on all the crucial issues of our time, foreign and domestic, national and local, urban and rural. But there’s something perverse about denying someone the right to vote to stop other people from denying them the right to vote. Perhaps that may be because we all lived through it and it can take time to notice that an experience that was universal in your life is actually harmful. It guarantees that our democracy will be government of the people and by the people, not just for the people. In 1963, President Kennedy's Commission on Registration and Voting Participation expressed its deep concern over the low voting participation in the 21-30 year-old age bracket. According to one poll, the majority of Americans are opposed to allowing teens younger than 18 to vote. They can’t serve in the military.

There could, of course, be an important political dimension to 18 year-old voting.

The History of democracy and voting in Europe and the United States What steps have been taken to expand the electorate, throughout history? Thus, although a State may have primary authority under Article I of the Constitution to set voting qualifications, it has long been clear that it has no power to condition the right to vote on qualifications prohibited by other provisions of the Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. Democratic societies work surprisingly well, considering that voters don’t seem very informed. Thus, in the Morgan case, the Court gave Section 5 the same construction given long ago to the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution by Chief Justice John Marshall in the famous case of McCulloch v. Maryland, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1819.

In fact, many teens are taking on activist roles while they are still in high school. First, it’s kind of perverse that the fact that kids are excluded from participation in many corners of society gets used as an excuse to exclude them from the civic sphere as well.

In light of these important developments, the time is ripe for Congress to playa greater role. Encourage your teen to research what each of the candidates stands for. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that: 'The Congress shall have power to enforce? Left to state initiative, therefore, the result is likely at best to be an uneven pattern of unjustifiable variation. Unlike the question of direct popular election of the President, which is also now pending before the Senate, lowering the voting age does not work the sort of deep and fundamental structural change in our system of government that would require us to make the change by pursuing the arduous route of constitutional amendment. Nevertheless, in spite of this past practice, Katzenbach v. Morgan and other decisions by the Supreme Court demonstrate that those particular amendments are in no way limitations on Congress' power under the Constitution to lower the voting age by statute, if Congress so chooses. What's more, if they are male, they will have registered for selective service as well. Giving them a vote would be a first step toward addressing that.

We know that increasing numbers of Federal and state programs, especially in areas like education and manpower, are designed for the benefit of our youth. Some states may even allow 17-year-olds to vote in caucuses as well. In the long run, I’d expect that an electorate that nourishes its youngest participants ends up more informed.

And, it is clear that the power exists not only for Federal elections, but for state and local elections as well. Third, 18 year-olds already have many rights and responsibilities in our society comparable to voting. Many experts believe that today's 18 year-old is at least the equal, physically and mentally, of a 21 year-old of his father's generation, or a 25 year-old of his grandfather's generation. 8. Many argued that if young men could be drafted to fight in a war, they should be able to vote.

First, our young people today are far better equipped -- intellectually, physically, and emotionally -- to make the type of choices involved in voting than were past generations of youth.

They argue that it will give teenagers a chance to become involved in politics early and create lifetime voters. Virtually no one wants to go back to denying 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds the vote. We know that there is broad and bipartisan support for the principle of 18 year-old voting. Hill-HarrisX Poll.

This guy is just plain sick. In addition, to insure that litigation under the statute does not cloud the outcome of any election, it might be desirable to include a provision limiting the time within which a legal challenge could be initiated, or postponing the effective date of the statute for a period sufficient to guarantee that a final judgment of the Supreme Court as to its validity will be obtained before an election.

Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Katzenbach v. Morgan in 1966, the scope of Congress' power under Section 5 to pre-empt State legislation was unclear. However, we must insure that no action we take on 18 year-old voting will interfere with the prompt consideration of the pending Voting Rights bill, or delay its enactment by the Senate or the House. By securing the right to vote, we help to insure, in the historic words of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, that our government "may be a government of laws, and not of men." Last month, the Administration gave its firm support to the cause. It did not go well. The prospect of success is great, and I hope that we can move forward to accomplish our goal.

There are a host of good reasons to give children the vote. The lengthy delay involved in the ratification of a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age before many years have elapsed.

First, it’s fairer to young children who are capable of voting successfully; it doesn’t deny them rights because of the assumption they’re too unskilled to exercise them. House Democrats and Andrew Yang have pushed for a voting age of 16. Some states even allow teens to pre-register as young as 16, even though they cannot vote in an election until they are 18.