12. The United States lowered the legal voting age to 18
During the protests against the draft over the course of the Vietnam war, a leading complaint was that 18-year-old men could be drafted to serve in the military, but were denied the right to vote. In Congress, Senator Ted Kennedy and allies in the House raised the issue during debates over the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A provision was added which granted 18-year-old citizens the right to vote in federal, state, and local elections. Nixon allowed it as political expediency to get the legislation passed, though he believed that the courts would find the provision unconstitutional. It gave the federal government control over state and local elections.
Nixon was right, in a case brought by his Attorney General John Mitchell, the Supreme Court found the provision unconstitutional. But it struck down only the section dealing with state and local elections. The right to vote in federal elections remained in force. The following year the 26th Amendment was ratified, and the right to vote in all elections was granted to those who had reached the age of 18. In the first presidential election which followed in 1972, about half of the newly eligible voters participated. Voter turnout for the demographic declined in ensuing elections until the turn of the century. It rose in national elections since.
