is likely to be affected by lowering the voting age, is little short of fanciful". Harlan then attacked Black's reasoning that Congress had the power to regulate voting age in federal elections. Focusing on the explicit words of the Constitution, Harlan stated that "[i]t is difficult to see how words could be clearer in stating what Congress can control and what it cannot control". Stewart Stewart's opinion, joined by Chief Justice Burger and Justice Blackmun, agreed with Harlan that the Constitution gives states the power to set voting qualifications. In a footnote, Stewart pointed out that the Fourteenth Amendment itself used a voting age of 21 for the purpose of calculating the basis of states' representation in Congress, and therefore "so long as a State does not set the voting age higher than 21, the reasonableness of its choice is confirmed by the very Fourteenth Amendment upon which the Government relies". Enforcement Enforcement of this ruling might 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. Such states would have had to maintain two sets of voting registries, one for those between the ages of 18 to 20 and another for those 21 and older. The question became moot with the prompt ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment the next year, which prohibited both the states and the federal government from denying the vote to citizens over the age of 18 on account of age. 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 possesses the power to prevent states from lowering their voting age below 18, since the federal government has not tried to prohibit states from doing so. See also List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 400 United States v. Butler, Carter v. Carter Coal Co., References Further reading External links United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court original jurisdiction cases 1970 in United States case law 1970 in Oregon Abrogated United States Supreme Court decisions United States elections case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court