On June 16, 1960, Congress voted to pass the Twenty-third Amendment, which gave American citizens living in Washington, DC, the right to vote for the president and vice president. On March 29 of the following year, Ohio voted in favor of it, completing the ratification process of the amendment, giving it the support of the required three-fourths of the states.
The 23rd Amendment states:
Section 1
The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Section 2
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Although Washington, DC, is not a state, the 23rd Amendment gave its residents the right to vote for presidential electors, who then cast votes for the president and vice president in the Electoral College.
Each state gets a certain number of electoral votes based on the number of congressmen the state has, which is decided by the state’s population. Every state receives two electoral votes for its two senators, plus one electoral vote for each of its congressional districts. Under the 23rd Amendment, the District of Columbia is treated the same as the least-populous state, regardless of its actual population.
President John F. Kennedy praised the ratification of the 23rd Amendment as a “major step in the right direction.”
“The speed with which this Constitutional amendment was approved by the required number of States demonstrates the interest of the nation at large in providing to all American citizens the most valuable of human rights--the right to share in the election of those who govern us,” Kennedy added.
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