[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4916 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 4916
To expand youth access to voting, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 5, 2025
Ms. Williams of Georgia (for herself, Ms. Ansari, Ms. Brown, Mr.
Carson, Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick, Ms. Clarke of New York, Ms. Crockett,
Ms. DelBene, Mr. Deluzio, Mr. Doggett, Ms. Elfreth, Mr. Evans of
Pennsylvania, Mr. Fields, Mr. Figures, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Mr.
Green of Texas, Mr. Jackson of Illinois, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Ms.
Kamlager-Dove, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, Ms. Lee of
Pennsylvania, Mr. Lynch, Ms. McClellan, Mrs. McIver, Mr. Mfume, Mr.
Moulton, Mr. Mullin, Ms. Norton, Ms. Pressley, Mrs. Ramirez, Ms.
Salinas, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Scott of Virginia, Ms. Sewell, Ms. Simon,
Ms. Strickland, Mr. Thanedar, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, Ms. Titus,
Ms. Tlaib, and Mr. Tonko) introduced the following bill; which was
referred to the Committee on House Administration, and in addition to
the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To expand youth access to voting, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Youth Voting
Rights Act''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents of this Act is as
follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Sense of Congress.
Sec. 3. Findings.
Sec. 4. Enforcement of the 26th Amendment.
Sec. 5. Treatment of public institutions of higher education as voter
registration agencies under National Voter
Registration Act of 1993.
Sec. 6. Pre-registration of minors for voting in Federal elections.
Sec. 7. On-campus polling locations.
Sec. 8. Prohibition of residency requirements.
Sec. 9. Requirements for voter identification.
Sec. 10. Grants to States for activities to encourage involvement of
youth in election activities.
Sec. 11. Absentee voting.
Sec. 12. Studies and data collection.
SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) 50 years ago, our Nation came together unanimously to
expand the franchise to those 18 years of age and older and to
outlaw age-based discrimination in accessing the franchise;
(2) 50 years later, the promises of the 26th Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States (referred to in this Act
as the ``26th Amendment'') remain unfulfilled although the
reasons that motivated its ratification endure; and
(3) pursuant to section 2 of the 26th Amendment, Congress
is empowered to enforce the article by appropriate legislation
and acts accordingly in this Act.
SEC. 3. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Over 50 years ago, on July 1, 1971, this Nation
ratified into the Constitution of the United States the 26th
Amendment, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 years of age
and outlawing the denial or abridgement of the right to vote on
account of age.
(2) Support for the 26th Amendment was nearly unanimous.
The proposed constitutional amendment passed with bipartisan
supermajorities, passing in the Senate with a vote of 94-0, and
passing in the House of Representatives with a vote of 401-19.
The 26th Amendment was approved by the requisite 38 States in
less than 100 days, making it the quickest constitutional
amendment to be ratified in United States history.
(3) Support for lowering the voting age to 18 was
championed across the aisle. President Dwight Eisenhower,
former Commander of the Allied Forces, included the issue in
his 1954 State of the Union Address. Moreover, President
Richard Nixon emphasized his support for the 26th Amendment
during its certification ceremony, describing that young people
serve a critical role by infusing the practice of democracy
with ``some idealism, some courage, some stamina, some high
moral purpose that this Nation always needs, because a country,
throughout history, we find, goes through ebbs and flows of
idealism.''. Similarly, Senate majority leader Michael
Mansfield and Senator Ted Kennedy were key advocates of the
measure, having first proposed a statutory route for lowering
the voting age in the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970
(Public Law 91-285), in addition to supporting a path through
constitutional ratification.
(4) The Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 (Public Law
91-285) marked the first Federal law to enfranchise youth and
outlaw age discrimination in accessing the franchise. In title
III of that Act, Congress declared, with strong bipartisan
support, that the 21-year age requirement--
(A) ``denies and abridges the inherent
constitutional rights of citizens eighteen years of age
but not yet twenty-one years of age to vote'';
(B) has the effect of denying those disenfranchised
``the due process and equal protection of the laws that
are guaranteed to them under the Fourteenth
Amendment''; and
(C) ``does not bear a reasonable relationship to
any compelling State interest.''.
(5) The age-based expansion of the franchise via the Voting
Rights Act Amendments of 1970 was ultimately found by a
strongly divided Supreme Court to be unconstitutional as
applied to State and local races and constitutional as applied
to Federal races. Thus, to ensure uniform election
administration in Federal and State races, a constitutional
solution was required.
(6) A variety of reasons were advanced to support
ratification of the 26th Amendment. The emerging themes
included--
(A) the value of idealism, courage, and moral
purpose that youth provide in reenergizing the practice
of democracy;
(B) the increased political competence of young
people compared to prior generations, due to greater
access to information through standardized education
and technology such as then-widely available television
sets;
(C) the increased responsibilities assumed by the
group as they fought in war, assumed debt, and lived
independently;
(D) a general recognition of the Nation's expansion
toward a more inclusive suffrage; and
(E) the stemming of unrest by encouraging
institutionalized mechanisms to advance change.
(7) In referring the 26th Amendment to the States for
ratification, Congress invoked the Voting Rights Act and the
principles protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States, explaining that ``[F]orcing young voters
to undertake special burdens-obtaining absentee ballots, or
traveling to one centralized location in each city, for
example-in order to exercise their right to vote might well
serve to dissuade them from participating in the election. This
result, and the election procedures that create it, are at
least inconsistent with the purpose of the Voting Rights [A]ct,
which sought to encourage greater political participation on
the part of the young; such segregation might even amount to a
denial of their 14th Amendment right to equal protection of the
laws in the exercise of the franchise.''.
(8) According to the Center for Information & Research on
Civic Learning and Engagement (referred to in this Act as
``CIRCLE'') of Tufts University, a record-high 28 percent of
young people voted in the 2018 midterm elections, more than
doubling the record-low 13 percent youth turnout in 2014.
Still, young people vote at lower levels than older adults.
(9) Lower youth voting rates are not a sign of generational
apathy but of systemic barriers and issues with the culture of
political engagement that have plagued young people of various
generations for decades. Individuals that were part of older
generations voted at similar rates as individuals in the
Millennial and Gen Z generations when those older generations
were youth. For the first presidential election in which a
generation's entire 18-24 age cohort was eligible to vote (1972
for Boomers, 1992 for Gen X, and 2008 for Millennials), each
participated at about 50 percent.
(10) The outsized reliance by young voters on provisional
ballots in recent years demonstrates the structural obstacles
young voters face due to voter restrictions. A 2016 survey
found that 1 in 4 Millennials voted provisionally in the 2016
race, compared to 6 percent of Baby Boomers, and 2 percent of
the Greatest Generation.
(11) In addition to voting provisionally at
disproportionate rates, young voters' provisional ballots are
also disproportionally rejected. As determined by a recent
Federal court, voters aged 18 to 21 in Florida had their
provisional ballots rejected at a rate more than 4 times higher
than the rejection rate for provisional ballots cast by voters
between the ages of 45 to 64.
(12) Similarly, young voters experience a higher rejection
rate of vote-by-mail ballots compared to older voters. One
study found that voters aged 18 to 21 had their vote-by-mail
ballots rejected at a rate of over 5 times that of voters
between the ages of 45 to 64 and over 8 times those over the
age of 65. These rejection rates trend with those of voters of
color. For example, the study found that the rate of rejection
of vote-by-mail ballots for Hispanic and African American
voters is over 2 times that of White voters.
(13) Moreover, when special burdens are removed, young
people vote more frequently. Once polling places were finally
situated on campuses during the early voting period, pursuant
to successful 26th Amendment litigation, one study found that
on 12 campuses alone, nearly 60,000 registered voters
participated in the 2018 general election through early in-
person voting. Young voters, people of color, and those who did
not cast a ballot in 2016 disproportionately voted at the on-
campus voting locations. Voter turnout is bolstered by on-
campus voting locations because those locations lower the
opportunity costs for voting for all registered voters,
particularly for young registered voters.
(14) Young people are passionate about political issues and
often want to engage in the political process, but they face
barriers to participation. For example, they may face
structural obstacles such as proof requirements that obscure a
young person's right to vote, barriers to voter registration,
inaccessible or poorly equipped polling places, campus
gerrymanders, over-reliance on provisional ballots, unequal
access to vote-by-mail, and unfair treatment of provisional and
vote-by-mail ballots. Some of these barriers are acute for the
youngest voters who are particularly transient and move every
year, thereby struggling to update their voter registration, or
who are less likely to have a driver's license to use as voter
identification. Youth voters are similarly vulnerable to
confusion about their right to vote from their campus
residences. Although the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the
right of college students to vote from their campus residences
in 1979, pursuant to the 26th Amendment, misinformation,
disinformation, and legal challenges persist about this right.
Congress finds that students indeed have a right to vote from
their campus residences. Relatedly, many young people have not
been taught about elections and voting, including the
practicalities of registering and casting a ballot and the
reasons why their voices and votes matter in democracy.
(15) Seven States restrict access to vote-by-mail on
account of age, allowing voters above a certain age to vote
with no excuse, and requiring that voters below 60 or 65 meet a
narrow list of excuses to vote-by-mail. In those States, voters
65 and older comprise nearly 65 percent of all at-home ballots,
whereas the use of at-home ballots is more evenly distributed
across age cohorts in States without the age-restriction. In
age-discriminatory vote-at-home States, 21 percent of adults
over 65 voted at home in 2018, but less than 6 percent of
voters 18-34 did so. Congress further finds that eligible
voters, including youth, have the right to vote by mail in
Federal elections free of prima facie age restrictions.
(16) Studies reinforce the habit-forming nature of voting,
making it all the more important that voting becomes normalized
at an early age through unobstructed access to the ballot. For
example, a recent study found that on average, voting in 1
election increases the probability of voting in a future
election by 10 percentage points.
(17) According to CIRCLE, youth without college experience
also tend to vote at lower rates than young people in college.
For example, in 2018, 28 percent of youth (ages 18-29) voted,
while the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education of Tufts
University estimated that 40 percent of college students cast a
ballot. There are disparities by age, and even among youth; the
youngest group (ages 18 and 19) vote at lower rates. There are
also disparities by urbanicity, with young people in rural
areas and other civic deserts having lower voter turnout.
(18) According to CIRCLE, low-income youth are acutely
impacted, since their economic struggles translate into
multiple logistical barriers to voting. A recent survey of low-
income youth found that young voters reported barriers to
voting, including--
(A) confusion with voter identification rules (88
percent);
(B) confusion about the impact of voter
disenfranchisement (42 percent reported lack of clarity
about whether someone who paid a fine for driving under
the influence could vote or if someone with a suspended
driver's license could vote);
(C) confusion about the location of polling places
(39 percent did not know where to vote); and
(D) a high lack of confidence that they would be
fully prepared to vote if an election happened ``next
week'' (only half of surveyed youth reported
confidence).
(19) Moreover, youth reported negative voting experiences
due to failure to see young people working at the polls (87
percent), failure to see poll workers that look like them (74
percent), and not believing that election officials make an
effort to ensure that people like them can vote (59 percent).
(20) Presidential election years are particularly
consequential for youth voter engagement. For example, 61
percent of 18- to 29-year-olds were registered to vote in 2008,
compared to 49 percent in 2010. Moreover, youth who registered
to vote are considerably more likely to vote. Among youth
registered in 2008, 84 percent cast a ballot.
(21) While direct youth voter registration, outreach, and
engagement is typically heightened in the Summer and Fall
months leading up to presidential elections, unprecedented
obstacles presented themselves amid the COVID-19 pandemic as
the economy slowed, the Nation shut down, and institutions of
higher education, technical and vocational schools, and high
schools, along with county election offices, changed their
normal operations.
(22) The 2020 primary cycle shed light on the unique
obstacles faced by young voters in uncertain times as they were
displaced from the college domiciles where they would
eventually return. Confused and misinformed about their right
to vote from campus despite the temporary relocation, these
voters had to adjust for the first time to obtaining, printing,
properly filling out and submitting along with required proofs,
and mailing postage-required official forms and paperwork, such
as voter registration forms, absentee ballot requests, and
absentee ballots.
(23) The 2020 election resulted in unprecedented voter
turnout overall, boasting the highest turnout in United States
history, with 17,000,000 more voters compared to the last
presidential cycle. The unprecedented trend tracked for youth
voters as well. 2020 was the first election in which the
majority of voters under the age of 30 voted. States with the
highest youth voter rates were those with more robust
registration and vote by mail laws, such as those with pre-
registration, same day registration, election day registration,
early voting, and accessible no-excuse vote by mail
opportunities.
(24) The response to increased voter turnout has been an
unprecedented number of State legislative proposals to make it
harder to cast a valid ballot, such as the imposition of
limitations on the availability of drop-boxes, limitations on
the counting of out-of-precinct ballots, and the removal of
student identification as valid voter identification where
required. Pressures have also mounted on the local level, with
continued efforts to prevent or remove on-campus polling
locations, which are key to youth engagement since they allow
students to vote where they study, work, eat, and sleep.
(25) State and local election administration impacts youth
at large, i