Twenty-Sixth Amendment
Chapter 40 of the CLEP American Government study guide on Effortless Math covers Twenty-Sixth Amendment: the key terms, the core ideas, and worked examples showing how this topic is tested on the exam.
CLEP American Government, Chapter 40
Twenty-Sixth Amendment
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment prohibits the United States and the states from denying or abridging the right to vote of citizens who are eighteen or older on account of age. Ratified in 1971, it established eighteen as the national voting-age ceiling for federal, state, and local elections. A government may not require a citizen to be twenty-one before voting.
The amendment grew out of pressure to align voting rights with the responsibilities placed on young adults, especially during the Vietnam era. Its rapid ratification followed legal uncertainty about whether Congress could set the voting age for every type of election by statute. The amendment resolved the matter through a clear constitutional rule.
Do not read the provision too broadly. It protects against age-based denial once a citizen is eighteen; it does not erase registration deadlines, residency rules, or other generally applicable election procedures. On a CLEP question, the decisive clue is a voting restriction aimed at otherwise qualified citizens between eighteen and twenty-one.
Video lesson: Voting rights | Political participation | US government and civics | Khan Academy
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