Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the right to vote of citizens who are eighteen years of age or older cannot be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age. It set a nationally standardized minimum voting age of eighteen for state and federal elections, replacing the twenty-one year standard most states had used before. Congress proposed the amendment on March 23, 1971, during the Vietnam War era, on the argument that men who could be drafted and sent to fight at eighteen should also be able to vote at that age, and it was ratified on July 1, 1971, the fastest ratification of any amendment to the United States Constitution.