Voting Rights in America: Every Citizen, Every Ballot, Every Election

Why Is It So Hard to Vote in America?

The United States is the only major democracy that makes its citizens fight for the right to vote. Registration burdens, voter ID requirements, polling place closures, and gerrymandered districts create a system designed to reduce participation — not expand it. And these barriers are not accidents. They are strategies.

The Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013 was the turning point. The Supreme Court struck down the preclearance formula of the Voting Rights Act — the provision that required states with a history of racial discrimination to get federal approval before changing their voting laws. Within hours, Texas announced a strict voter ID law that had been blocked under preclearance. Within five years, states across the South and Midwest closed over 1,688 polling places, overwhelmingly in Black and Latino communities. The decision did not merely permit voter suppression. It invited it.

Voter ID laws are presented as common-sense fraud prevention — but they solve a problem that does not exist. In-person voter impersonation, the only type of fraud that voter ID prevents, occurs at a rate of 0.00004% to 0.0025%. Meanwhile, an estimated 21 million American adults — 11% of the citizen voting-age population — lack a government-issued photo ID. Those without ID are disproportionately Black, Latino, elderly, low-income, and young. Strict voter ID laws reduce turnout by 2-3 percentage points, with the largest effects on minority communities. They suppress far more legitimate votes than the fraudulent votes they purportedly prevent.

Polling place closures create longer lines, longer travel times, and lower turnout — particularly in communities of color. Between 2012 and 2018, states closed 1,688 polling places, with the heaviest concentration in formerly preclearance-covered jurisdictions. In some counties, voters must travel over 100 miles to reach their nearest polling location. These closures are not budget decisions. They are political ones.

Voter roll purges remove eligible voters from registration rolls, often without adequate notice. Between 2016 and 2018, states purged over 17 million voters from their rolls. While some purges remove genuinely ineligible voters (the deceased, those who have moved), studies show that aggressive purge programs disproportionately affect minority and low-income voters and frequently remove eligible voters who then discover on Election Day that they cannot vote.

Felony disenfranchisement strips the right to vote from approximately 4.6 million Americans, with stark racial disparities. One in 16 Black adults is disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, compared to one in 59 non-Black adults. In seven states, more than one in seven Black adults cannot vote. The United States is one of the few democracies that permanently disenfranchises citizens after they have completed their sentences. For more on criminal justice reform, see the criminal justice issue page.

What Is Gerrymandering and How Does It Undermine Democracy?

Gerrymandering is the practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to predetermine election outcomes. It is the most effective voter suppression tool in American politics — and it operates in plain sight.

Gerrymandering works through two complementary techniques. "Packing" concentrates opposition voters into a small number of districts so they win those seats overwhelmingly but are outnumbered everywhere else. "Cracking" splits opposition voters across many districts so they are a minority in each one. Together, these techniques allow the party drawing the map to win a supermajority of seats with a minority of votes.

The results are staggering. In the 2022 midterms, an estimated 59% of US House districts were drawn to be safely partisan — meaning the outcome was determined by the map, not by the voters. In Wisconsin's 2018 state legislature elections, Democrats won 54% of the statewide vote but only 36% of the seats. In North Carolina, a 50-50 statewide electorate produced a 10-4 Republican congressional delegation until courts intervened. In Ohio, the state Supreme Court struck down maps as unconstitutional gerrymandering five separate times — and Republican legislators used them anyway.

Gerrymandering is not a partisan issue in theory — both parties do it where they can — but it is overwhelmingly a Republican strategy in practice, because Republicans controlled redistricting in significantly more states after both the 2010 and 2020 censuses. The REDMAP project, a coordinated effort by the Republican State Leadership Committee, explicitly targeted state legislature races in 2010 in order to control redistricting. It cost $30 million and produced a decade of gerrymandered maps that distorted representation across the country.

The solution is independent redistricting commissions — bodies composed of citizens, not legislators, that draw maps using neutral criteria (compactness, contiguity, preservation of communities of interest) rather than partisan data. States that have adopted independent commissions — including Arizona, California, Colorado, and Michigan — have produced dramatically more competitive and representative maps. The Common Good plan requires independent redistricting commissions for all congressional and state legislative maps. For the full policy, see the voting rights issue page.

How Does the Common Good Voting Rights Plan Work?

The Common Good plan implements seven structural reforms that eliminate voter suppression, end gerrymandering, and make American democracy actually representative. Every provision is modeled on systems that already work — in US states or in peer democracies.

These are not aspirational goals. They are specific, implementable reforms with legislative language, constitutional grounding, and demonstrated results. Together, they transform American democracy from a system designed to limit participation into one that ensures it.

• Automatic Voter Registration: Every eligible citizen is automatically registered to vote using existing government databases (Social Security, IRS, Selective Service). Citizens can opt out but never need to opt in. Currently used in 22 states and DC, where it has increased registration rates by 10-94% depending on the state.
• Election Day National Holiday: Election Day becomes a federal holiday. All employers with more than 15 employees must provide paid time off to vote. Early voting begins no fewer than 14 days before the election, with extended hours and weekend availability. No American should have to choose between their paycheck and their vote.
• Ranked-Choice Voting: Federal elections adopt ranked-choice voting for all congressional and presidential races. Voters rank candidates by preference, eliminating the spoiler effect, reducing negative campaigning, and ensuring winners have majority support. Currently used in Alaska, Maine, and 50+ local jurisdictions.
• Independent Redistricting Commissions: All congressional and state legislative district maps are drawn by independent, bipartisan citizen commissions using neutral criteria — population equality, contiguity, compactness, and preservation of communities of interest. No partisan data. No incumbent protection. Maps subject to judicial review.
• Restore the Voting Rights Act: A new preclearance formula that covers jurisdictions with recent histories of voting discrimination, restoring the protections gutted by Shelby County v. Holder. Any jurisdiction that has violated voting rights within the past 25 years must obtain federal approval before changing voting procedures.
• End Partisan Gerrymandering: Federal prohibition on partisan gerrymandering for congressional districts, with enforceable standards and judicial review. Partisan intent and partisan effect are both prohibited. Maps must produce outcomes proportional to statewide voting patterns within a reasonable range.
• Expand Early and Mail Voting: All states must offer no-excuse mail voting and a minimum of 14 days of in-person early voting. Drop boxes must be available at a ratio of no fewer than one per 20,000 registered voters. Ballot curing processes must allow voters to fix technical errors before their ballots are rejected.

For the complete plan with legislative detail, constitutional analysis, and sourcing, see the full voting rights issue page.

How Does US Voter Access Compare to Other Democracies?

The United States ranks 31st among democracies in voter turnout. That is not because Americans don't care about democracy. It is because the American system makes voting harder than virtually any peer nation — by design.

The pattern is clear. Countries that make voting easy — automatic registration, weekend or holiday voting, accessible identification — achieve turnout rates 10 to 25 percentage points higher than the United States. Australia, which combines automatic registration with compulsory voting and Saturday elections, achieves 92% turnout. Sweden, with automatic registration and Sunday voting, achieves 87%. The United States, with citizen-initiated registration, Tuesday voting on a workday, and a patchwork of ID requirements, manages 66% — and in midterm elections, closer to 50%.

Sources: International IDEA, Pew Research Center, OECD, national election commissions. See the full voting rights issue page for complete sourcing.

What Is Ranked-Choice Voting and Why Does It Matter?

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is the single most important structural reform for American elections. It eliminates the spoiler effect, rewards coalition-building over division, and ensures that every elected official has majority support. It is already working in Alaska, Maine, New York City, and over 50 other US jurisdictions.

Here's how it works: instead of choosing one candidate, voters rank candidates in order of preference — first choice, second choice, third choice, and so on. If one candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, they win outright. If no candidate reaches a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. Voters who chose that candidate as their first choice have their ballots transferred to their second choice. This process repeats until one candidate has a majority.

RCV solves three critical problems with the current system. First, it eliminates the spoiler effect. Under the current system, voting for a third-party candidate can "spoil" the election by splitting the vote and electing the candidate least aligned with the majority. Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016 are cited as examples. Under RCV, voters can rank a third-party candidate first and a major-party candidate second without fear that their vote will be wasted. This opens the door for new parties — including the Common Good Party — to compete fairly.

Second, RCV reduces negative campaigning. Because candidates need second-choice votes from their opponents' supporters, they have an incentive to build coalitions rather than demonize opponents. Studies of RCV elections show that candidates run significantly more positive campaigns and that voters report higher satisfaction with the electoral process.

Third, RCV ensures majority support. Under the current system, candidates can win with less than 50% of the vote — and frequently do, especially in crowded primaries. Under RCV, the winner must ultimately achieve majority support through the preference-transfer process. This produces elected officials with broader mandates and stronger democratic legitimacy. For the full ranked-choice voting framework, see the voting rights issue page.

What Are the Biggest Myths About Voter Fraud?

Voter fraud has been weaponized as a justification for voter suppression since Reconstruction. The evidence is unambiguous: voter fraud is vanishingly rare, and the laws designed to "prevent" it suppress far more legitimate votes than fraudulent ones. Here are the four most persistent myths — and what the data actually shows.

Voting Rights: Frequently Asked Questions

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