finding a Twenty-Sixth Amendment violation where the state did not allow unmarried minors to establish domicile separate from their parents for purposes of voter registration
How later courts described this case
- finding a Twenty-Sixth Amendment violation where the state did not allow unmarried minors to establish domicile separate from their parents for purposes of voter registration
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WRIGHT, C. J.
I concur in the majority opinion insofar as it is concluded therein that the places of residence of minor citizens of voting age are to be fixed in a like manner with the places of residence of adults, for purposes of determining the jurisdiction in which they are to vote. This result is *583 compelled by clear language of the Twenty-sixth Amendment which provides in pertinent part that the “right Of citizens of the United States . . . to vote shall not be . . . abridged ... by any State on account of age.” 1
It cannot be disputed that state-imposed restrictions which compel a minor of voting age to vote, if at all, only in the jurisdiction where his parents reside whatever his legitimate reasons for living apart from them, necessarily diminishes, curtails, reduces and accordingly abridges his right to vote only on account of his minority. The minor would thus be incapable of voting in the jurisdiction where he permanently and legally resides, while the adult is free not only to vote in such jurisdiction but to change the place where he votes when he changes his residence. No basis for justifying such an abridgment or discrimination on the right to vote, other than the minor’s age or distinctions dependent thereon, has been suggested in the instant case. As the Twenty-sixth Amendment expressly prohibits the described state of conduct, we need not inquire further and to do so only emphasizes matters which should be of no concern to us.
There is no stronger statement of governing policy considerations in any particular circumstance than an express declaration embodied in our federal Constitution. Where, as here, such a declaration is manifestly dis-positive of the single issue no good purpose is served by a concurrent examination of state or federal policies, or legislative histories, in an attempt to ascertain that .the supreme law of the land must be adhered to because lesser policy considerations likewise require the same result.
Petitioners are entitled to their peremptory writ because the Constitution directs it, and we need and should not seek otherwise to justify such constitutional direction.
McComb, J., and Burke, J., concurred.
The majority correctly and, for purposes of the decision herein, conclusively holds that the “Twenty-sixth Amendment prohibits abridging the right to vote on account of age. The word ‘abridge’ means diminish, curtail, deprive, cut off, reduce. [Citations.]”