As many of us are working and hoping to prevent Trump and his Cult from taking over and destroying our democracy, we must realize that this democracy is already shaky. One of the processes we use to put stumbling blocks in Trump’s way is voting.
A cornerstone of democracy is the right to vote. However, our democracy is weak, at best, in voting. The history of America can be told by its undemocratic limits on that right. Voting in the United States has centered around who could vote and, therefore, who could not. Voting has always been problematic in America.
It cannot be true that voting is a sacred right of citizens in the U.S., as is often proclaimed. If it were, polling day would not be held on Tuesdays, when many people must work and pay costs in time and sometimes money to vote.
Countries that hold voting dear make it easy to vote. Some have elections on weekends—both days–and others declare the voting day a holiday. Some countries have voting as a civic duty and require everyone to vote. And some penalize people who do not vote.
For example, in Ecuador, citizens are required to vote or be fined. A few years ago, a colleague from that country visited my university as a part of a university-to-university collaboration that my department was facilitating. An interesting discussion we had concerned what his fine might be as he was visiting us during election time in Ecuador.
In the beginning, only White male property owners in the United States could vote. Later, White, non-property-owning men were permitted to vote, then Black men. As women gained the right to vote, African American men and women, in effect, lost their right to vote in many areas of the country.
Voting is heralded as the primary plank of a democracy. Yet, the United States has a long history of limiting voting. This fact has caused me to argue that the United States approached being a democracy only between 1965, the year of the Voting Rights Act, and 2013, the year the Supreme Court virtually gutted the Voting Rights Act.
Political scientists Levitsky and Ziblatt write that we should democratize our democracy and align it with most other democratic nations. They would start by ensuring that every citizen has a right to vote. There is no constitutional right to vote. So, they argue for enacting such a constitutional amendment.
I agree with their proposals to continue this democratization of our democracy by doing the following:
Establish automatic registration to vote for all citizens turning 18 years of age.
Expand early voting and easy mail-in voting options for all citizens.
Make Election Day a Sunday or a national holiday.
Restore voting rights to all ex-felons who have served their time.
Restore national-level voting protections by reinstating federal oversight of election rules and administration in states and localities with a history of voting rights violations.
Replace the current system of partisan electoral administration with one in which state and local electoral administration is in the hands of professional, nonpartisan officials.
Unfortunately, to move the country toward democracy, we must overcome the current anti-democratic obstacles to voting and elect like-minded defenders of democracy.
