GOP presidential candidate calls for ending U.S. citizens’ automatic right to vote at 18
Pre-Trump Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to dramatically change how America elects its leaders – or rather, who is allowed to elect its leaders.
In a fiery interview with CNN, Ramaswamy, himself the product of two immigrant parents, said people who are born in the United States to one or two undocumented parents should not be automatically granted U.S. citizenship.
Ramaswamy promoted his belief that birthright citizenship – which is in the U.S. Constitution – should end, along with the automatic right of U.S. citizens to vote in elections at the age of 18, both of which would dramatically reshape the electorate, greatly reducing the historically more Democratic, younger voters.
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."
He also wants a constitutional amendment that would require U.S. citizens to "earn" their right to vote, a right that too, technically, is automatic, although Republicans for years have been engineering roadblocks and methods to dilute to power of the vote, especially via gerrymandering.
He would raise the minimum voting age to 25, from 18, unless U.S. citizens passed a citizenship test, or served in the military.
"I don't think someone just because they're born in this country, even if they're a sixth-generation American, should automatically enjoy all the privileges of citizenship until they've actually earned it," Ramaswamy, a biotech businessman with a Yale law degree, told CNN (video below). "So one of the things I've said is that every high school student who graduates from high school should have to pass the same civics test that every immigrant has to pass in order to become a citizen of this country."
"I believe that there are civic duties attached to citizenship, so much so that I don't think you should automatically get your right to vote at age 18. Unless you have passed that same citizenship test that immigrants have had to pass, or else have served the country."
On social media he expounded upon his beliefs, saying, "no one born in this country - whether 1st generation or 5th generation - should automatically inherit the full privileges of citizenship until they *earn* those privileges: every 18-year-old should have to pass the same civics test required of naturalized citizens, or else serve the country for 6 months in a military or first responder role, before earning the full privileges of citizenship."
Ramaswamy, who is a U.S. citizen, has not served in the U.S. Armed Forces, although in an interview last week with The Breakfast Club he claimed to have "volunteered" for this country, at a local hospital in high school, as Mediaite reported.
“If I’m being really honest, why did I do that in high school? A part of the motivation, I’ll be just brutally honest with you, was that’s actually what allows you to get into a good college when you graduate,” he said.
He also admitted that the first time he voted was in 2020, when he would have been 35 years old.
In May, The New York Times profiled Ramaswamy, calling him "a long-shot 2024 contender," who "is lavishly wealthy and astoundingly confident. He also promises to exert breathtaking power in ways that Donald Trump never did."
Watch videos of Ramaswamy above or at this link.