Illustration by Sarah Angèle Wilson
This article appears in the August 2022 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here.
We are in the midst of a fierce battle over the fundamental question of who gets to have a say in the decisions that affect all of our lives. The appalling attempt at a coup against our democracy hangs over the discussion, but there is hand-to-hand combat taking place every day on the issue of voting rights. Supporters of full voting rights are fighting defensive battles to protect what we have now, and winning these battles is crucial. But we believe it is time to imagine the democracy we really want to have, to put a larger vision forward of a fully inclusive, fully participatory democracy. We propose one key element of that vision: universal voting.
In our book, 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting, we propose making voting a requirement for every citizen. The best way to guarantee voting as a right is to assert it, unequivocally, as a civic duty for every American. Enacting universal voting—federally or at the state or municipal levels—would establish a North Star for the democracy movement. It would put every specific battle over voting rights in the context of a fundamental question: Do we want to move toward 100 percent democracy or not?
While universal voting has not been part of the public discussion about voting in this country, it is hardly a new or radical idea. Some two dozen democratic countries around the globe have some form of required voting now—countries as diverse as Australia, Uruguay, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, and Mexico. The new Chilean constitution, pending a popular vote, includes universal voting. And in the case of Australia, it has been in practice, successfully, for almost 100 years, since 1924. Few ideas have as ample a proof of concept.
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Closer to home, we think there is a nearly exact analogy in jury duty. Serving on a jury is a requirement of citizenship that we accept as a matter of course, even if many grumble about being called. Universal jury service ensures that the pool of people called on to decide a person’s guilt or innocence reflects our population as a whole. The same should be true for voting. The decisions that affect our lives, and the people we elect to make them, should represent “the sum of us,” as author and advocate Heather McGhee has argued.
So how does this work in Australia? The starting point is a strong, professional, properly funded national agency, the Australian Electoral Commission, whose responsibility is to get everyone on the voting rolls. As of this year, 96.8 percent of Australians were “enrolled,” the combined effort of the Federal Direct Enrolment and Update program, the political parties, and civil society organizations of all stripes. There are many options voters can use to cast ballots, including early voting, mail-in voting, and being able to vote at any polling place in one’s state.
The civic culture is a celebratory one. Elections are on Saturday, and they feature the beloved “democracy sausage” booths at every polling place. People recognize their obligation to participate as a matter of course. In the most recent Australian federal election in May, 89.74 percent of those registered turned out to vote.
Universal voting could launch an upward cycle of participation and maybe even build trust in our democratic institutions.
Enrolled Australians who do not vote in a federal election receive a letter afterward asking them for a reason, and a broad range of reasons for failing to cast a ballot are accepted. If two notices are served without a response, a fine of AU$20 (about $15 U.S.) is imposed. This system amounts to a nudge, not a shove or a hammer: In the previous election, just 13 percent of nonvoters, or about 1 percent of all potential voters, were assessed the fine.
UNIVERSAL VOTING WOULD HAVE several major benefits. There is good reason to believe, from Australia’s experience, that turnout would shoot up quickly. After what the Australians call “compulsory attendance at the polls” went into effect, turnout increased from less than 60 percent to over 90 percent, and has stayed at that level ever since.
Contrast that to our last two elections, both of which were hailed for their near record-breaking turnouts. In the 2018 midterms, turnout was 50 percent. In the 2020 presidential election, participation was the highest in more than 100 years, at 66.8 percent. This was in fact a real achievement. Voters took advantage of expanded opportunities to cast a ballot, and they did so despite a pandemic and some 400 lawsuits that made for ever-changing procedures. But as the experience of Australia shows, we can do much better.
The participation increase universal voting would bring about would also create an electorate more fully reflective of our population. Our current electorate underrepresents young people, communities of color, lower-income voters, and voters less driven by ideology. This in turn undermines government responsiveness to their needs. Numerous studies have shown that government policies, over a long period of time, have skewed toward higher-turnout segments of the electorate—better-off voters and the elderly—as well as the donor class.
There would be other major benefits. If universal voting were enacted, all sectors of our society would bend toward making the system work. Again, as the Australian experience shows, mandating that everyone votes requires making it as easy and convenient as possible for them to cast ballots. The reforms democracy advocates are seeking in the U.S. would be the gateway to universal voting. Election administrators—as most among them already do—would have as their primary task enabling citizens to do their duty. Making Election Day a holiday follows naturally from this idea.
Knock-on benefits would likely include a greater emphasis on civic education in high schools; knowing that every graduating student is required to participate would encourage school boards and administrators to give civics a higher priority. There are also strong indications that in Australia and other countries that use this system, citizens who know they are required to vote do in fact educate themselves about the issues at stake, and the candidates and parties in competition.
CAROLA FRENTZEN/PICTURE-ALLIANCE/DPA/AP IMAGES
Australia’s “democracy sausages” are a fixture of Saturday election days, which frequently get close to 90 percent turnout.
Universal voting would also dramatically alter the nature of campaigns, for the better. Our current system turns elections into the equivalent of a fancy dinner party. There is an A-list of consistent voters, a B-list of infrequent voters, and a C-list of those not registered. Campaigns concentrate resources on the A-list. Candidates are usually told by their handlers not to bother talking with people who are not likely to vote, and their campaign messages typically ignore them, too. Under universal voting, campaigns need to talk to everyone. A universal voting system would tell every citizen that they are invited to participate in our experiment in self-government, that their voices and their votes are valued and needed.
That in turn, would change the incentive system for campaigns. Especially in lower-turnout contests, Democratic and Republican consultants alike stress bringing core supporters to the polls, sometimes through angry appeals that might be summarized as “enrage to engage.” Campaigns work to gin up their own bases, and, in all too many cases, to find ways to depress, or even suppress, the votes of their opponents. Under universal voting, parties and candidates will need to make persuasion a much higher priority. They will have to find ways to speak to all voters. Political campaigns will always be passionate and sometimes turn nasty, but universal voting creates strong incentives for more inclusive appeals that could put some guardrails around our toxic polarization.
Universal voting could certainly be enacted at the federal level; in fact, the Civic Duty to Vote Act has been filed by Congressman John Larson (D-CT) in response to the book. Given that the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act couldn’t move, we know this is unlikely to pass anytime soon, but we hope it will help open a broad national debate on what 100 percent democracy could look like.
More promising in the short term are efforts to enact universal voting at the state and local levels. Per the Constitution, states can determine the time, place, and manner of their elections. In states that already have expansive voting policies, universal participation could be the next leap forward.
Indeed, legislators in several states have indicated real interest in advancing legislation in 2023. Bills have already been introduced in Massachusetts and Connecticut. In 13 states, municipalities have broad powers over elections that would allow them to adopt universal voting for local elections. There’s a snowball effect here: If a large city adopted universal voting, and raised its share of the vote in statewide elections, other cities would be inclined to follow to maintain their influence.
In other states, localities could push state legislatures to grant them this option. What if they gave a school board election and everybody came? At a time when extreme forces seek to dominate these bodies, many communities would welcome broader participation by voters in electing their members.
THE ADOPTION OF UNIVERSAL VOTING would not solve every problem that afflicts American democracy. It is not a magical elixir. The Electoral College, gerrymandering and redistricting, the outsized influence of big money in our politics, and the undemocratic nature of the U.S. Senate itself all distort and weaken our democracy, and should be reformed.
But universal voting could be the reform that underwrites other reforms. It could launch an upward cycle of participation and responsive representation, and maybe even build trust in our democratic institutions.
We have no illusions about the difficulty of making this reality. Our own polling found that only 26 percent of Americans currently support universal voting, although the same polling found that more than half of Americans are open to persuasion. The libertarian reflex against any form of compulsion is a strong current in American culture.
But the case for universal voting has never been made systematically. Our polling also found that 61 percent of Americans agreed with the premise underlying the proposal: that voting is both a right and a duty. Support for this idea was as strong among Republicans as among Democrats.
There is a powerful democracy movement in the United States that has spearheaded reforms to reduce barriers to voting. Our hope is that this movement will embrace universal voting as a major long-term goal.
Again, the jury duty analogy is instructive. Ending racial discrimination in the selection of juries—which meant including Black Americans among those required to serve—was one of the great victories of the civil rights movement.
Charles J. Ogletree Jr., the legendary law professor and civil rights lawyer, observed that “A jury gives ordinary people extraordinary power.”
The same is true of the right to vote.
