The 26th Amendment emerged from a long history of youth activism and the push to lower the voting age in response to the Vietnam War draft.
As detailed in the Civics 101 episode, the amendment was driven by civil rights, labor, and student groups who saw it as a key issue of political representation, and it was rapidly ratified in 1971 following a 1970 law and Supreme Court case that created momentum for standardizing the voting age nationwide.
The More Perfect episode further explores the 26th Amendment in the context of other key Constitutional amendments, examining the modern debate around potentially lowering the voting age even further to 16.