Voter turnout in the United States presidential elections
Recent decades have seen increasing concern over the fact that youth voting turnout is consistently lower than turnout among older generations. Several programs to increase the rates of voting among young people—such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" (founded in 1990) and the "Vote or Die" initiative (starting in 2012)—may have marginally increased turnouts of those between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote. However, the "Stanford Social Innovation Review" found no evidence of a decline in youth voter turnout. In fact, they argue that "Millennials are turning out at similar rates to the previous two generations when they face their first elections."
District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment
Ratification by the legislatures of at least 38 of the 50 states by August 22, 1985, was necessary for the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to become part of the Constitution. During the seven-year period specified by Congress it was ratified by only 16 states and so failed to be adopted. The amendment was ratified by the following states:Had it been adopted, this proposed amendment would have given the District of Columbia full representation in both houses of the Congress. Also, this proposed amendment would have repealed the Twenty-third Amendment. The Twenty-third Amendment does not allow the District to have more electoral votes "than the least populous State", nor does it grant the District any role in the election of a President by the House of Representatives (or that of the Vice President by the Senate). In contrast, this proposed amendment would have provided the District full participation in the Electoral College. Finally, the proposed amendment would have also allowed the Council of the District of Columbia, the Congress, or the people of the District (depending on how this proposed amendment would have been interpreted) to decide whether to ratify any proposed amendment to the Constitution, or to apply to the Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution, just as a state's legislature can pursuant to the Constitutional amendment process. The amendment would neither have made the District a state, nor affected Congress's authority over it.