Book Review: 100% Democracy makes the case for adopting universal voting in the U.S.

The 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will be here faster than the pub­lic expects, which makes improv­ing vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion an imme­di­ate concern.

Short term are need­ed to pre­vent anoth­er elec­tion fraught with suc­cess­ful attempts to dis­en­fran­chise vot­ers. But we’ve also got to think longer term about rein­vig­o­rat­ing our democ­ra­cy, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing that young peo­ple are one of the groups that votes the most incon­sis­tent­ly — or not at all.

In 100% Democ­ra­cy: The Case for Uni­ver­sal Vot­ing, E.J. Dionne and Miles Rapoport make the intrigu­ing argu­ment that the best way to pre­vent vot­er sup­pres­sion is to make vot­ing a legal require­ment. They are quick to point out that this is not a rad­i­cal idea, pro­vid­ing the exam­ple of the Aus­tralian uni­ver­sal vot­ing sys­tem, which pro­duced a turnout of 91.9% in 2019.

Uni­ver­sal vot­ing, which they call civic duty vot­ing, would make vot­ing a com­pul­so­ry civic respon­si­bil­i­ty as well as a right.

The authors direct­ly address con­cerns and legal claims against uni­ver­sal vot­ing, address­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties cul­ture in the U.S. would cre­ate in imple­ment­ing this pol­i­cy. Some Amer­i­cans have expressed dis­com­fort with the idea of com­pul­so­ry vot­ing, which acts as a large bar­ri­er for those try­ing to demys­ti­fy it.

Advo­ca­cy for uni­ver­sal vot­ing isn’t just a response to com­bat­ing vot­er sup­pres­sion. Dionne and Rapoport argue that it is time we re-assert that vot­ing is a civic duty.

The call to ful­fill­ing civic duties was well-bal­anced with the prac­ti­cal real­i­ty that many peo­ple do not vote because it is too dif­fi­cult, not because they reject par­tic­i­pat­ing in democ­ra­cy. Uni­ver­sal vot­ing has the pow­er to make vot­ing eas­i­er and nor­mal­ize it as a default in America.

Dionne and Rapoport also go much fur­ther than mere­ly lay­ing out what they see as the steps to imple­ment­ing uni­ver­sal vot­ing. Read­ers will find a com­pelling and thor­ough jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the prac­tice, both con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and philosophically.

Dionne and Rapoport base their posi­tion on the Constitution’s pre­am­ble, assert­ing that our cur­rent vot­ing sys­tem fails to live up even to the open­ing words: “‘We the Peo­ple,’ are cen­tral to the argu­ments for uni­ver­sal civic duty vot­ing, and a gov­ern­ment built on wide par­tic­i­pa­tion in our elec­tions would be far more like­ly to advance the oth­er pur­posed the Pre­am­ble describes – none more so that the quest for jus­tice, domes­tic tran­quil­i­ty, and liberty.”

The key con­sti­tu­tion­al attack against civic duty vot­ing is derived from the First Amend­ment. The argu­ment is that requir­ing cit­i­zens to vote equates to forced and coerced speech. The authors stress the impor­tance of clar­i­fy­ing between “manda­to­ry par­tic­i­pa­tion” and “manda­to­ry voting.”

A uni­ver­sal vot­ing sys­tem would allow peo­ple to vote “none of the above” on their bal­lots or pro­vide a legit­i­mate rea­son for not mak­ing selections.

Exam­ples of oth­er civic duties with manda­to­ry defaults include jury duty, the nation­al cen­sus, and dues (local, state, and fed­er­al taxes).

These sug­gest that civic duty vot­ing can suc­cess­ful­ly be defend­ed in our courts against the argu­ment that it is coerced speech.

I would def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend this book to any­one who is hop­ing to bet­ter under­stand the issue of vot­er sup­pres­sion, how it has impact­ed past elec­tions, and how to advo­cate for a last­ing solution.

A pletho­ra of dis­in­for­ma­tion has helped pur­pose­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly con­fuse many vot­ers on this issue, mak­ing this book’s sum­ma­ry of elec­tion fraud claims and the use of vot­er sup­pres­sion a very pow­er­ful, effec­tive tool.

Rel­a­tive­ly short, suc­cinct, and made easy to under­stand, Dionne and Rapoport have cre­at­ed a com­pre­hen­sive guide to how Amer­i­ca can adopt the ulti­mate vot­ing jus­tice reform: uni­ver­sal voting.