Uncovering the Twenty-Sixth Amendment

UNCOVERING THE TWENTY-SIXTH AMENDMENT

by

Jenny Diamond Cheng

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) in The University of Michigan 2008

Doctoral Committee: Professor Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Chair Professor Elizabeth S. Anderson Professor Donald Jay Herzog Associate Professor Mika Tapani Lavaque-Manty

? Jenny Diamond Cheng 2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have helped me in the course of this project, and I am enormously grateful to them all. Thank you very much to Arlene Saxonhouse, my dissertation chair, whose careful insights, wise counsel, and consistent support have been truly invaluable. Arlene's repeated exhortations to "Just keep writing!" while taking it on faith that something resembling a dissertation would eventually emerge from the muck surely saved this project from an untimely demise on more than one occasion. Many thanks also to the rest of my committee: Don Herzog, Mika Lavaque-Manty, and Elizabeth Anderson, for their time, thoughts, and assistance.

I benefited greatly from institutional support from the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and from the University of Michigan Department of Political Science. The librarians at the research desk of the New York Science, Industry, and Business Library patiently helped me navigate the government documents maze. Thanks also to Melynda Price, who read chapter drafts, asked tough questions, and offered great advice.

I surely could not have completed this project without the unwavering support and help--certainly not the least of which was babysitting help--from my parents, Peter and Ethel Diamond, and parents-in-law, Stanley and Emy Cheng. But I owe my most heartfelt thanks to my husband, Edward Cheng, who read and commented on every word of this dissertation, rescued my hard drive, made sure that I had time to write, and never

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wavered in his conviction that the Twenty-sixth Amendment was really a great topic for a dissertation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................ ii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: A SHORT HISTORY OF EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD VOTING.............. 13 CHAPTER 3: MILITARY SERVICE ............................................................................. 28 CHAPTER 4: QUALIFIED VOTERS ............................................................................ 60 CHAPTER 5: A SAFETY VALVE................................................................................. 91 CHAPTER 6: DISCRIMINATION............................................................................... 116 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 152 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 159

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