48 U.S.C. § 1542
Section 1542 · Voting franchise; discrimination prohibited
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 2 court decisions — leading case Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)
Most recently applied in Bostock v. Clayton County (June 2020)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) The franchise shall be vested in residents of the Virgin Islands who are citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age or over. Additional qualifications may be prescribed by the legislature: Provided, however, That no property, language, or income qualification shall ever be imposed upon or required of any voter, nor shall any discrimination in qualification be made or based upon difference in race, color, sex, or religious belief.
(b) The legislature shall have authority to enact legislation establishing the voting age for residents of the Virgin Islands at an age not lower than eighteen years of age, if a majority of the qualified voters in the Virgin Islands approve in a referendum election held for that purpose.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1970—Pub. L. 91–460 designated existing provisions as subsec. (a) and added subsec. (b).