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Speak Up! - View Question #302 |
 printer friendly version
Question: Why aren't minors allowed to vote?
Answer: The United States Constitution addresses the age issue of voting in Amendment XXVI (26th) section 1,
'The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.'
Minors can't vote because our Constitution, which is the higest law in the Nation, says they can't. As you can read in the 26th Amendment above, only adults age 18 and older may vote.
Before the 26th Amendment was passed in 1971, people could not vote until they were 21 years old. For more on American Voting rights, see Amendments 12, 14, 15 and 19.
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| Comments |
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On 03/09/07
Lezly from OK said:
But WHY does the Constitution say so? If the Constitution said it's mandatory to jump off a bridge, would you do it?
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On 12/01/05
Jennifer from CA said:
This is a great injustice. Not only is taxation without representation against the bill of rights, but Social Security will be out of money by the time the minors today reach retiring age because a long time ago a bunch of really selfish adults decided to recklessly multiply. Fair voting is more dependent on if a person works rather than if a person "knows what is going on". Now there is an idea to give minors 1/4 vote. This is unacceptable. One day the youth will rise up against the ones who have taken their money,their future, and sent them to die. Columbine was just the beginning.
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On 05/11/04
jacOb from CA said:
You should be able to vote when you reach age 16. At 16 years old you can work a full time job where you pay federal income taxes to a government you have no say in. That's "taxation without representation." Also, at that age you can drive, and even get married in some states. Some teenagers get tried as adults in murder cases. It's being proposed that 16 years olds get "half votes," but are they half people? And by that line of thought, 50 year olds should get 6 votes, 80 years olds 10, etc. In order to maintain consistency and equality, you should be able to vote at 16. Just my opinion.
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On 05/10/04
Audrey from CA said:
While I agree that the voting age should be lowered, I don't think it
should be lowered past the age of sixteen. As for having to pay taxes
yet not being able to help choose where the money goes, it should not
be this way. Recently, people have been voting on things that have to
do with us. There have been a lot of budget cuts in California, and
some of them are from schools, yet we're not able to help decide
where the money goes. But we need to back up our arguments, so don't
make it so that voters can look at this website and say we're just
complaining, so we are too young an
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On 05/06/04
Missy from IN said:
I feel that teens should be allowed to vote at the age of 16, or at least have half a vote. Although, maybe there should be some sort of political class or something of that sort put into schools, so kids can be even more educated on what they are voting for.
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