September 17th is Constitution Day, reflecting the date in 1787 that delegates to the Constitutional Convention met to sign that document. There have since been 27 ratified amendments to the Constitution.
Many amendments to the Constitution are relevant to the office of the president and the presidential election process. Some highlights:
| Amendment | Ratified | Topic & Discussion |
| 12th | 1804 | Revises electoral vote process: Prior to this, each Elector cast two votes for president, with the person getting the most votes elected president and the person in 2nd place becoming vice-president. This didn't work out very well once political parties came along. After ratification, Electors cast one vote each for president and vice-president. The amendment also specified the rules when no candidate received a majority (270 today) of electral votes available. |
| 15th | 1870 | Voting rights cannot be denied based on race or prior servitude: Part of Reconstruction, this amendment attempted to address the voting rights of non-white men including former slaves. Despite ratification, many obstacles to voting would be placed in the way of African-Americans until passage of the 24th Amendment and the enactment of the Voting Rights Act almost a century later. Even today, voter suppression efforts occur (not all race-based), although many are more subtle than the tactics that preceded the 1960s. |
| 19th | 1920 | Extends the right to vote (suffrage) to women: While women were slowly gaining the right to vote at the state level, this amendment made it the law of the land. Ratification occurred 48 years after Susan B. Anthony was arrested trying to vote in Rochester, New York, a notable early event in the women's suffrage movement. Anthony died in 1906, fourteen years before her goal was achieved. |
| 20th | 1933 | Changes inauguration day: Set January 20th at noon as the start of a new presidential term, replacing March 4. More modern transportation methods had made a shorter 'lame duck' period more practical. The amendment also addresses a succession plan should a president-elect die before inauguration. Succession rules would be expanded upon in the 25th Amendment. |
| 22nd | 1948 | Sets presidential term limits: This amendment limited presidents to two elected terms, with the additional caveat that a person serving more than two years of an unelected term (e.g., as vice-president, succeeding a president who died in office) could serve one elected term. The two-term limit was an unwritten 'rule' until Franklin Roosevelt was elected to 4 terms beginning in 1932. |
| 23rd | 1961 | Gives the District of Columbia electoral representation: Prior to this, residents of the nation's capital essentially had no voting rights in presidential elections. The amendment gave Washington DC the number of electoral votes it would be entitled to if it were a state, but no more than the electoral votes of the least populous state. DC has had 3 electoral votes, and has used them to vote Democratic, since this constitutional right was first used in the 1964 presidential election. |
| 24th | 1964 | Prohibits a poll tax as a precondition to voting in a federal election: Poll taxes were used from the late 19th century onward as a way to disenfranchise African-Americans and/or poor people. This amendment banned those for presidential and congressional elections. The Supreme Court subsequently made them unconstitutional for any election in its 1966 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections ruling. |
| 25th | 1967 | Sets rules for presidential succession: Clarifies that the vice-president becomes president upon removal of the sitting president (apparently that wasn't clearly stated in the original Constitution). It also discusses the filling of vice-presidential vacancies and what happens if a president is incapacitated. Note that the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 addresses what happens when neither the president nor the vice-president are able to function as president. |
| 26th | 1971 | Extends the vote to those 18 and older: Young people became much more politically active during the 1960s, largely to protest the Vietnam War. With 30% of the forces in Vietnam under 21, the phrase "old enough to fight, old enough to vote" became part of the effort to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. There was opposition; nonetheless this amendment was ratified in about three months, the fastest ever for a constitutional amendment. |