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Constitutional Revision Study Documents of the Constitutional Convention Commission, 1968
Volume 138, Page 56   View pdf image (33K)
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SUFFRAGE AND ELECTIONS
F. Our limited experience with an 18-year-old minimum in the United States
demonstrates that it works satisfactorily. The experience of other nations that
have an 18-year-old requirement is irrelevant, since these nations have govern-
mental systems quite different from ours.

". . . The proposition which this
resolution [constitutional amendment
lowering the minimum voting age to
18 years] advances has been tested in
practice. The State of Georgia has
furnished the United States and its
sister states with the laboratory proof
of the desirability of reducing the
minimum voting age to 18 years. A
former Governor of that State [Ellis
Arnall] attests to the success of that
experiment. . . . ."14
"The mere fact that youth votes at
18 in Soviet Russia seems to be no
argument that 'evils of youthful vot-
ing' will follow. It makes no differ-
ence whether you are 18 or 80. Your
vote doesn't count for anything in
Soviet Russia anyway. The idea of
getting the young people of America
to do any goose-stepping around
seems to me to show an utter lack of
comprehension of the American
youth. I don't think you can regiment
the youth of this country in any such
way. In fact, I think just the opposite
is true. . . ,"15

III. ARGUMENTS OPPOSED TO LOWERING THE MINIMUM
VOTING AGE TO 18 YEARS
A. In general, youths of 18 lack the maturity of judgment and experience that the
exercise of the ballot demands in a free society.

". . . Eighteen to twenty-one are
mainly formative years where youth
is reaching forward to maturity. His
attitudes shift from place to place.
These are the years of the greatest
uncertainties, a fertile ground for
demagogues. Youth attaches itself to
promises, rather than to performance.
These are rightfully the years of rebel-
lion rather than reflection. We will be
doing a grave injustice to democracy
if we grant the vote to those under
21. . . ,"16
". . . The right to vote implies full
citizenship — or should at least — and
14 S. rep. No. 2036, 82d Gong., 2d Sess.
(1952).
15 Statement of former Representative
Kenneth B. Keating during a radio debate on
the question "Should 18 year olds vote?"
presented by the American Forum of the Air.
See congressional digest 78, 80 (March
1954).
56
this entails certain duties and respon-
sibilities, concomitants of citizenship.
Just to mention one: the duty, none
too pleasant, of serving on juries in
both civil and criminal cases. It is
doubtful if many teenagers would
possess the judgment, sound reason-
ing, and emotional stability to make
jury service a practical possibility.
"17
"On the question of teen-age voting,
as proposed by the President in his
State of the Union Message, we are
of a mind with his predecessor. Mr.
Truman has observed that hardly any
of us knows enough about American
politics and history at the age of 18
to make an intelligent choice at the
16 Statement of Emanuel Celler, D. of New
York, supra note 1.
17 Lyon, Shall We Lower the Voting Age to
18? 79 am. mercury 143-44 (August 1954).

 

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Constitutional Revision Study Documents of the Constitutional Convention Commission, 1968
Volume 138, Page 56   View pdf image (33K)
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