It may not be an election year but getting registered to vote, or updating your voter’s registration information, is still important, according to the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office.
National Voter Registration Day is the fourth Tuesday in September. This year it falls on Sept. 28. The day was created by the National Association of Secretaries of State in 2012 to encourage more people to register and participate in elections.
The West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office and the state’s 55 county clerks have been actively promoting voter registration throughout the month of September, according to a news release. By the end of the month, Secretary of State Mac Warner will have visited more than 30 counties and nearly two dozen high schools.
“The first step to participating in our democracy is being registered to vote,” Warner said. “If we can encourage eligible voters to register when they’re young, they are more likely to participate regularly in our election process.”
The late U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph from West Virginia was instrumental in lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 — 50 years ago in 1971.
During the last four years, more than 255,000 West Virginians registered to vote and more than 67,000 of them were high school students thanks to the 26th Amendment and Randolph.
There are currently more than 1.1 million West Virginians who are registered.
Eligible voters can register to vote online anytime by visiting a secure website at www.GoVoteWV.com. They can also visit county clerks’ offices to register in person.
Fifty years ago, 18, 19 and 20 year olds were given the right to vote. West Virginia’s senior U.S. Senator at the time, Jennings Randolph, was instrumental in that effort. He introduced the legislation 11 times between 1942 and 1971. It ultimately became the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In honor of the anniversary, and in preparation for National Voter’s Registration Month, which arrives in September, Eric Douglas spoke with Mike Queen and Lee Dean from the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office.
Dean is a character actor and is taking on the persona of Randolph to tell the story of the amendment. He remained in character throughout the interview.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Douglas: Mike, explain to me where this project to bring the 26th Amendment to life began.
Queen: I’m from Harrison County and I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know much about the role Jennings Randolph played in reducing the voting age from 21 to 18. Most people believe that the move started during the Vietnam War, when in all actuality, the fight to reduce the voting age from 21 to 18 started on Nov. 11, 1942. We just didn’t know that story.
Somehow the story of Jennings Randolph and the 26th Amendment got lost. So we talked about it and came up with this idea. We studied him. We’ve had a good time doing that, learning about his background. And for me, being from Harrison County, it was a way for me to learn a little bit more about Harrison County.
Douglas: Why is it important to bring that memory to life?
Queen: You can’t talk about engaging young people in the political process without this glaring white hot light being shown on the congressman, then senator, Jennings Randolph. It’s an incredible story. So it’s important to let people know that this wasn’t just something that came about. This was something that was really thought out over nearly 30 years.
Douglas: So senator, explain to me why it was important for you to change the voting age. Why was it important for you to get the vote for 18, 19 and 20 year olds?
West Virginia State Archives
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U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph with President Franklin Roosevelt.
Dean/Randolph: Well, you know, I was born in 1902, and my father was a lawyer in Harrison County. And we were one of those families that talked about things. We talked about current events, we talked about things going on in our community, in our city, in our county, and in our country. So I couldn’t wait to have the right to vote. I had opinions. I had thoughts. I had my own mind. And I wanted to have a say in who represented me in the capitol, whether it was in Charleston, or Washington D.C., or, or even on the board of education. I wanted to have input. Back then I had to wait until I was 21 to register to vote.
I was privileged to win a seat in Congress in Washington, D.C. representing West Virginia the same year Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to be president. I had the honor of taking my oath of office on the same day that he took his oath of office and my my what a man. I had the privilege to serve with nine U.S. presidents, but I don’t know that there was a better man for the time period. He was elected during that Great Depression to bring us out of all that.
But you know, shortly after he was elected, Germany invaded Poland, and that thrust us into World War II, particularly when Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. And as Mr. Queen indicated, less than a year later, the president signed an executive order lowering the draft age from 21 to 18. And I just felt, if we expect these young men and women to fight and serve and die for their country, then should they not have the right to vote in their country? That launched my 29-year-effort to see that happen.
Douglas: Tell me what it was like in 1971, when you finally got the 26th amendment passed, and ratified.
Dean/Randolph: I first introduced that legislation during World War II, all the way to 1971, on the 11th time introducing that legislation. During the Vietnam War, I had to watch 600,000 18, 19 and 20 year olds get drafted to serve this great country. And 200,000 of them never came back home. They never had the right to vote in this country that sent them to fight.
So that’s what kept fueling my fight. The language never changed in the legislation. I think just the culture itself changed and was more ready to receive the 18, 19 and 20 year olds. America was seeing family members drafted, they had cousins and brothers and uncles fighting for this great country. And I think they finally just realized it was time to get on board. It passed the House on March 23. And passed the Senate. West Virginia ratified the 26th Amendment on April 28.
Bonus content of Lee Dean as U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph talking about the first 18 year old to be registered to vote.
Douglas: Tell me about the first person, the first 18 year old to get the right to vote.
Dean/Randolph: Just because on April 28, West Virginia ratified it didn’t mean the first 18 year old could run right out and register to vote at their county courthouse. When that passed and was ratified there were now 11 million newly eligible voters. And so it took some time to get voter registration systems updated in this country.
Finally, in February of 1972, the White House called me and they said “Sen. Jennings Randolph, you’re by far a prominent U.S. senator, and you’re considered the father of the 26th Amendment. We would like to bestow upon you the honor of selecting the first 18 year old in America to register to vote.” Well, I thought, “my what a wonderful opportunity.”
I just so happened to be at my office in Elkins, West Virginia. And so I got off the phone and I instantly called over to Davis and Elkins College right there in Elkins and I said, “Get me an 18 year old that’s willing and wants to register to vote. I’m going to take them to the courthouse and do that.” So I drove my car over there. And sure enough, they had a nice young lady waiting on the sidewalk for me to pick up and drive over there. Her name was Ella Mae Thompson.
We got to talking on the drive over to the courthouse and she told me it meant a lot to her to do this. And she began telling me why. She had a brother named Robert Thompson. He was drafted to serve this country in 1965. And Sgt. Robert Thompson, unfortunately, never came back home. He died serving his country in 1967. So she said “Today, senator, I’m not just registering for myself. I’m registering in memory and honor of my brother Robert, who never had the right to vote, but died serving this country.”
I thought “My goodness, I could not have found a better young person to be the first person to register to vote.” But let me tell you something that happened. So she looks at me after that, and she gets kind of a serious look. And I said, “Well, what is the matter, my dear young lady?” She said, “Senator, I feel I need to tell you this. I come from a family of Republicans, Senator. And I know you’re a very renowned Democrat, but I feel I need to let you know that my family’s Republican and I will be registering as a Republican.”
I’m not gonna lie. I gripped that steering wheel and I thought “My God Jennings, you fought 29 years to get these 18, 19 and 20 year olds the right to vote. The first one your register registers the opposite party. Oh, my God, your colleagues are gonna haze you and just kid you and just be unmerciful to you, Jennings.”
She went so far as to say, “Would you like to go back over to campus and find a Democrat?” I said, “No, no. The main thing is you’re getting registered to vote. That’s all that matters here.”
She went on to be a teacher in the Randolph County School System and she still votes. We got to reunite with her not too long ago, and we got to meet her and we got to sort of reenact that moment. We met her at Davis and Elkins College, and we went down to the courthouse and we reenacted the walk that we took. We went inside the courthouse, and we found her original voter registration card. You talk about just some emotion that came flooding back to her mind. It was a beautiful, special moment. It was a West Virginia senator that gave the right to vote to every 18, 19 and 20 year old for generations to come. And so I always stress to young people, “I gave you the right to vote, but it’s your responsibility to vote.”
Ella Marie Haddix was a freshman in college when she was asked to do something no other 18-year-old in the country had done — register to vote.
She was accompanied to the Randolph County courthouse by Jennings Randolph, a U.S. Senator from West Virginia and father of the 26th amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18.
“I just remember it was snowing and the roads were slick,” Haddix said in an interview this week. “Senator Randolph and I had to cross the street and we held onto each other crossing the street to the courthouse because we were afraid we’d fall down because the road was so slick.
Back at the courthouse, Haddix told him she planned to register as a Republican because her family were Republicans. Randolph was a life-long Democrat and she was worried it might embarrass him.
“He was very gracious about it,” she said. “I told him if he wanted to look for someone else that would be okay but he said ‘No absolutely not, it didn’t matter whether it was Democrat or Republican.’ It was that he finally managed to get this 26th Amendment through Congress. It was his privilege to take an 18-year-old to register.”
Fifty years ago Wednesday, the West Virginia Legislature voted to ratify the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Later that year, the amendment became law and millions of Americans between the ages of 18 and 21 like Haddix got the right to vote.
Today, Haddix is a retired art teacher in Randolph County. In the classroom, she tells her students the story of how she registered to vote and made sure they registered, too.
Courtesy Secretary of State’s Office
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This year, to honor the occasion, West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner made Wednesday a special young voter registration day across the state.
“We’d like to get folks involved just as early as possible,” he said. “So this is focused at those 17 and 18-year-olds who are going to be able to vote in their first election — next year in 2022.”
Over 50 high schools in West Virginia will hold voter registration drives for eligible students.
“They see their classmates registering and go, ‘oh, what are you up to,’” Warner said. “We have people there with tables and so forth to actually give them the form and let them fill it out right on the spot.”
High schools that register at least 85% of the senior class will be eligible for the Jennings Randolph Award.
Lowering the voting age was a decades-long goal for Randolph.
Jo Boggess Phillips, a civics teacher and school librarian in Ripley, W.Va., is writing a biography about Randolph’s life and legacy. For the last few years, she’s researched his life and history as a lawmaker, using the state archives, his kids, and visits to every presidential library.
She said Randolph’s persistence set him apart from other lawmakers who tried to lower the voting age.
“He was one of the first and he never gave up,” Phillips said.
As a member of Congress, Randolph introduced legislation to lower the voting age, not once but 11 times.
Courtesy of Frank Randolph
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Jennings Randolph
She explains Randolph’s persistence by pointing to a quote from a Senate Committee hearing in 1961.
Randolph told his fellow senators that 18 to 21-year-olds “already bear the responsibilities of citizenship without its privileges.”
Phillips said Randolph was all about fairness when it came to the voting age. The senator believed the voting age should be lowered after the draft age was lowered to 18 during World War II.
“He had to work really hard at convincing those in power that these young people were capable of stepping up, and making decisions and creating ideas that would help the country,” she said.
When President Richard Nixon was elected, Randolph had been pushing to lower the voting age for over 25 years.
Jo Boggess Phillips
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Randolph’s 1969 letter to Nixon
“I am convinced, Mr. President, there is no better way to initiate a broad national effort to express justifiable confidence in our young citizens, and bring them into full partnership in our society, than to lower the voting age,” Randolph wrote in a letter to Nixon in December 1969.
Initially, Nixon’s staff brushed him aside but slowly came around under the senator’s persistence.
“Basically, they said, ‘Listen, you know, Jennings Randolph, is really pressing us on this. And we really think, can we not just say something that would be supportive?’” Philips said, referencing another letter from the Nixon Presidential Library. Finally, Randolph had found the right political moment for lowering the voting age.
The Nixon Administration supported the plan and with a significant grassroots campaign, it gained traction.
It passed both houses of Congress and was ratified by the states faster than any other amendment — three months and eight days.
Today, 17 to 21-year-olds make up about 6% of West Virginia voters and just under half of them voted in the 2020 election. Without the work of the late Sen. Randolph, they wouldn’t have been able to vote at all.
Publicist Sam Mallison was born in North Carolina on September 9, 1894. He worked for several small newspapers in the Tar Heel State before becoming city editor of the Clarksburg Telegram in 1916.
He later covered the West Virginia Legislature for the paper and gave a young Salem College student named Jennings Randolph a job as a sportswriter.
In 1924, Mallison went to Washington to serve as private secretary to Clarksburg’s Howard Gore, who’d been appointed assistant secretary of Agriculture. After Gore was elected governor, he named Mallison state auditor. Mallison later served as capital correspondent for Wheeling-based Ogden Newspapers.
In 1937, he was hired as head of public relations for the Benedum-Trees Company—a worldwide collection of oil, pipeline, and refining companies. He worked for the company for 28 years, during which time he wrote The Great Wildcatter, a biography of company founder and Bridgeport native Michael Benedum.
In 1961, Mallison published Let’s Set a Spell, a collection of anecdotes covering subjects ranging from the governor’s office to death row at the penitentiary. Sam Mallison died in Texas in 1979 at age 84.
On August 5, 1958, Jennings Randolph defeated former Governor William Marland in a Democratic primary. The special election was part of a process to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Matthew Neely. In the general election, Randolph beat incumbent Senator Chapman Revercomb, who had been appointed temporarily to fill Neely’s seat.
Jennings Randolph was one of the giants of West Virginia politics. He was the first mayor of the town of Salem and helped found Salem College, now Salem International University. He was first elected to Congress at age 30 during the Democratic landslide of 1932. A dyed-in-the-wool New Deal Democrat, he worked closely with the Roosevelt Administration and, in particular, with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in establishing the model town of Arthurdale in Preston County.
Randolph was re-elected to the House six times before losing in 1946. After rejoining Congress as a senator in 1959, he supported the Interstate Highway program and sponsored the constitutional amendment allowing 18-year-olds to vote.
Jennings Randolph was re-elected another four times to the Senate before retiring in 1985. He died in 1998 at age 96.
On July 25, 1960, Governor Cecil Underwood addressed the Republican National Convention in Chicago. The 37-year-old Underwood backed Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon and disparaged Nixon’s Democratic opponent, John F. Kennedy.
Less than three months after the 1960 Democratic primary in West Virginia, Underwood implied that Kennedy had beaten his opponent, Hubert Humphrey, by essentially buying votes. The money Kennedy spent in West Virginia has always been a controversial part of the story. For his part, Humphrey also felt that the wealthy Kennedy family had bought the Mountain State for JFK.
A few months later, Nixon lost the 1960 general election to Kennedy in a close contest where money once again played a major role.Underwood was also campaigning for himself in 1960. Prohibited by the state constitution for running for a second term as governor, Underwood lost to incumbent Democratic Senator Jennings Randolph in the November general election race for the U.S. Senate. It was Underwood’s first ever political loss. He wouldn’t be elected again to public office for 36 years, winning the governorship for a second time in 1996—on his 74th birthday.
