Why is the voting age 18?

Pulitzer-prize winning historian and author Jill Lepore has spent her career uncovering the stories we often do not tell, particularly about American history and democracy. In her most recent books, These Truths and We, the People, she asks what really made and makes the United S ...  Show more

This is part two of our story about the original story of America we don't talk about...and how it ties to where we are today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 

In 1969 Harold Wilson's Government lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Fifty years on, with calls for votes at 16 gaining support, Professor James Tilley explores not just whether reducing it further makes sense, but if arguments could be made for raising it back to 21. As most ...  Show more

Drunken brawls, coercion, and lace curtains. Believe it or not, how regular people vote was not something the founding fathers thought much about, or planned for. Americans went from casting votes at drunken parties in the town square to private booths behind a drawn curtain. In ...  Show more

The 25th and 26th Amendments — ratified in 1967 and 1971, respectively — are some of the newest additions to our founding document. However, they tackle some pretty basic questions: who gets to rule, and who gets to vote? If a president dies or is incapacitated, who takes over ...

What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral College might surprise you and make you think differently about not only this upcoming presidential election, but our democracy as ...  Show more