Oregon v. Mitchell,
400 U.S. 112Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1970), was a case in which the
Supreme Court of the United StatesThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
held that states could set their own age limits for state elections.
Petitioner
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
was the
U.S. stateA U.S. state is any one of 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government . Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile...
of that name. Respondent Mitchell was
John MitchellJohn Newton Mitchell was the first United States Attorney General ever to be convicted of illegal activities and was imprisoned. He also served as campaign director for the Committee to Re-elect the President, which engineered the Watergate first break-in and employed Watergate burglar James W....
in his role as
United States Attorney GeneralThe United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The Attorney General is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
.
CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
had passed an act requiring all states to register citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 as voters. Oregon did not desire to lower its voting age to 18, and filed suit on the grounds that the act was
unconstitutionalConstitutionality is the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or guidelines set forth in the applicable constitution. When one of these directly violates the constitution it is unconstitutional...
. The Supreme Court found largely for Oregon, in that it found that while Congress could set requirements for voting in federal elections that it did not have the power to set the voting age for state elections.
Enforcement
Enforcement of this ruling would have proven to be problematic, since states not lowering the voting age to the age of 18 for state elections would have had to provide special federal-election only ballots to citizens between 18 and 20 voting in federal elections. States would have to maintain two sets of voting registries, one for those between the ages of 18 through 20 and another for those 21 and older.
This question became moot with the ratification of the
Twenty-sixth AmendmentThe Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution standardized the voting age to 18. It was adopted in response to student activism against the Vietnam War and to partially overrule the Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Mitchell. It was adopted on July 1, 1971.-Text:-Background:In...
the next year, which lowered the voting age to 18 for all elections in all states.
Though
Oregon v. Mitchell affirmed the federal government's power to set a minimum voting age for federal elections, no case has tested whether the federal government possess the power to prevent states from lowering their voting ages to below 18 for federal elections since the federal government has not tried to prohibit states from doing so.
See also