The 26th Amendment to the lowered the minimum voting age from 21 to 18 in 1971, as thousands of under-21s were being drafted to fight (and die) in Vietnam
•Now some Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, want the age ratcheted down to 16
•Pelosi said Thursday that iIt’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school’ while they’re ‘learning about government’
•American groups advocating the change include socialists, libertarians and liberal nonprofits
•A Massachusetts freshman congresswoman offered a vote-at-16 amendment to the Democrats’ broad voting-rights and anti-corruption bill, but it failed
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that she would support a law allowing 16-year-olds to vote.
The 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 – lowering the temperature on Vietnam-era political protests borne of young adults’ frustration at political outsider status despite a military draft that cost more than 25,000 Americans younger than age 21 their lives.
Pelosi and some younger, liberal members of her caucus proposed another ratcheting-down this month as part of a broad voting-rights and anti-corruption bill, which passed but has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.
An amendment offered by freshman Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts failed to pass the House in a 126-305 vote.
Pelosi said Thursday that she supports the idea: ‘I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16. I think it’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school, when they’re interested in all of this, when they’re learning about government, to be able to vote.’
The wording capture kids says it all