Big Vote to Come

Come 1972, the nation's 18-to 20-year-olds will have the right to vote for the President, the Vice President and members of Congress. But except in a few instances.* they will still be unable to cast ballots for the governors or legislators of their own states, or even for the mayors of their own home towns. For those privileges, they must wait until they are 21--unless there is some very fast legislative footwork between now and November 1972.

This schizophrenic state of affairs is the result of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions last week. The main point at issue was whether Congress had a right to lower the age of the nation's voters, as it set out to do when it passed some amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 last June, or whether a constitutional amendment is necessary to do the job. Although he signed the congressional amendments into law, President Nixon questioned whether Congress was overstepping its powers, asked an early ruling from the Supreme Court.

Five of the nine Justices found the President's misgivings unfounded, at least in respect to federal elections. Since Congress can regulate national elections in other ways, the Court's majority reasoned, it also has the authority to set the age of voters. Likewise in state and local elections, four of the five justices held. But Hugo Black demurred on the second issue. "No function is more essential to the separate and independent existence of the states and their governments," Black wrote, "than the power to determine within the limits of the Constitution the qualifications of their own voters." Thus the vote was 5 to 4 against allowing youths to vote in the state and local elections.

North as Well. Senator Mike Mansfield was responsible for getting the amendment through the Senate, and now Senator Edward Kennedy has introduced a constitutional amendment to finish the job across the board--states, counties and all. Since three-fourths of the state legislatures must ratify an amendment before it becomes law, the process could take well beyond 1972. To avoid the confusion of preparing double sets of ballots, many states may move to lower voting ages to 18 on their own.

Giving the vote to women 50 years ago changed no election patterns, because women voted as variously as men. Psephologists do not expect 18-to 20-year-olds to vote as a bloc either; and indeed, given the current student mood of seeming apathy, they may not vote in large numbers at all.

Two other liberalizing provisions of the voting rights amendments were endorsed by the Supreme Court last week as well: 1) residence requirements for voting in presidential elections were limited to 30 days; 2) literacy tests for voters were suspended in all states. Effective enforcement of the ban on such tests, first provided in 1965 by a formula that applied only to the South, was extended to include the North as well. Thus about 10 million people who will move to new areas, perhaps a million illiterates, and more than 11 million youths are now added to the rolls, increasing the federal electorate by at least 18%.

* Alaska, Georgia and Kentucky permit 18-year-olds. Montana and Massachusetts 19-year-olds, and Hawaii, Maine and Nebraska 20-year-olds to vote.

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