SUNDAY, MARCH 27 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A27
SUNDAY Opinion
levels of government must allow citizens
to fulfill their obligations. Voting as a
civic responsibility is rooted in the
proposition that rights and duties are
intimately related. Declaring voting a
duty is the best way to defend it as a
right. To say that everyone should vote is
the surest guarantee that everyone will
be enabled to vote.
Those with a moral objection to
voting could assert conscientious-
o bjector status, as they can for the draft.
To avoid the compounding of fines and
fees of the sort disproportionately im-
posed on low-income people of color, we
propose that any fine imposed for
failure to vote — no more than $20 — not
be compounded with interest and penal-
ties, nor could it be the basis for any
criminal warrant. And the penalty could
be waived in exchange for an hour of
community service.
The point is not to impose sanctions
but to signal that voting is an expecta-
tion of citizenship. Again, this would
underscore to election stewards that
their task is to help citizens do their
duty, not to erect obstacles.
Is this proposal constitutional? Yes.
We do not refer to this proposal as
“compulsory voting” because to force
citizens to choose a candidate or party
might legitimately be construed by the
courts as compulsory speech. Voters
would be free to cast a blank ballot. And
to stress the freedom not to make a
choice, we propose including a “None of
the Above” option.
Just as it took time for our country to
adopt the secret ballot, it will take effort
and experimentation to make universal
civic duty voting the national norm. In
keeping with Justice Louis Brandeis’s
call for states to “try novel social and
economic experiments,” we hope indi-
vidual states will adopt the system and
demonstrate its value. About a dozen
states give localities wide leeway in
establishing rules for local elections, so
municipal and county experiments are
also possible.
Courts have long ruled that govern-
ment can legitimately require certain
forms of behavior. Our society accepts
the universal obligation to serve on
juries as the only way to guarantee fair
trials that vindicate the rights of every-
one. Serving on a jury for a long trial is a
far more onerous task than casting a
ballot, especially in a system that makes
doing so easy. Charles J. Ogletree Jr., the
legendary civil rights lawyer and Har-
vard Law professor, observed that it is
“perhaps... a measure of our progress”
that “all races and all citizens groan
equally loudly when the jury summons
arrives.” Yet the right and duty of all to
serve are part of the country’s “constitu-
tional strength.”
“A jury gives ordinary people extraor-
dinary power,” Ogletree wrote. The same
can be said of the right — and the duty —
to vote.
It is time to think anew. Our nation
should make clear that it takes the
rights and responsibilities of every
citizen seriously. Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine has called forth an extraordi-
nary global alliance on behalf of demo-
cratic self-determination. This is a mo-
ment for the United States to e mbrace
its commitment to democracy and self-
rule — not only in what we say but also
in how we govern o urselves.
E.J. Dionne Jr. is a Post Opinions columnist.
Miles Rapoport is a senior fellow at the Ash
Center of Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government and a former Connecticut
secretary of state. This essay is drawn from
their book, “100% Democracy: The Case for
Universal Voting.”
BY E.J. DIONNE JR.
AND MILES RAPOPORT
T
he first step toward ending our
voting wars is to recognize that
every citizen should play a role
in shaping our nation’s destiny.
In the wake of changes that made
voting more convenient, and resulted in
record turnout in 2020, state after state
is making it harder for citizens to cast a
ballot. Congress is deadlocked on
whether the federal government should
protect this most basic of all democratic
rights. False claims of election-rigging in
2020 led to a violent attack on the very
process of transferring power. As a
nation, we vacillate between inclusion
and exclusion, between embracing de-
mocracy and retreating.
Breaking this cycle requires a game-
changer. We propose universal voting.
Under this system, every U.S. citizen
would be legally obligated to vote, just as
every citizen is obligated to serve on
juries. By recognizing that all of us, as a
matter of civic duty, have an obligation
to shape our shared project of democrat-
ic self-government, we could move from
our 2020 voter turnout high — some
66.8 percent of eligible voters — much
closer to 100 percent democracy.
Universal voting takes seriously the
Declaration of Independence’s
i nsistence that government is legitimate
only when it is based on the “consent of
the governed.” The Founders did not say
“some of the governed” (even 66.8 per-
cent). Including everyone in our system
of government would live up to the
promise made at the birth of our
republic. Universal voting would tear
down barriers and elevate our civic
obligations. It could undergird other
reforms and make clear that our coun-
try’s commitment to democracy is un-
apologetic, confident and complete.
As a public responsibility, voting is no
less important than jury duty. Universal
civic-duty voting would put an end to
legal assaults on voting rights. Those
responsible for organizing elections
would be required to resist all efforts at
voter suppression.
By bringing all citizens into our
democratic experiment, universal vot-
ing would tell those who run p olitical
campaigns to stop treating elections like
invitations to exclusive parties. There
would no longer be an A-list of “likely
voters” and B- and C-level lists of those
less likely to participate. Political candi-
dates would have to appeal to all of us,
rather than strategize on how to turn
out their base while discouraging the
other side’s supporters from casting
ballots.
More than two dozen democratic
countries have versions of compulsory
participation. One of the most success-
ful models is Australia’s. The United
States adopted the secret ballot after
Australia tried it first. We should do the
same with universal voting.
Adopted in 1924, Australia’s system
has created a culture of participation.
Election Day is always on a Saturday,
and turnout hovers around 90 percent
in every major election. “Voting in
Australia is like a party,” one voter told
the New York Times in 2018. Participat-
ing in elections is not some grim
exercise involving endless lines. Elec-
tions become what they should be:
celebrations of freedom.
The Australian system provides for a
wide range of legitimate excuses for
failing to cast a ballot, including illness,
and the penalty for not voting is low:
20 Australian dollars (roughly $15).
Fewer than 15 percent of nonvoters end
up having to pay the fine.
While everyone is required to register,
the Australian Electoral Commission
takes the lead in “enrolling” every
citizen through a federal program; as of
December, 96.3 percent of eligible Aus-
tralians were registered to vote. Aussie
political parties and civil society organi-
zations join in a major public education
effort as well. There are multiple ave-
nues of early and mail voting, and easy
access for people away from home on
Election Day.
The gateway reforms that a fair
U.S. system would require are similar to
those included in the Freedom to Vote
Act and other voting rights bills lan-
guishing in Congress — legislation we
strongly support. Explicitly declaring
voting a duty would make clear why all
What if everyone voted?
The case for 100 percent democracy.
JOVANA MUGOSA FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
S
en. Tom Cotton is what you might
call a counterfeit commoner.
The dour Arkansas Republican
announced with indignation at
last week’s Supreme Court confirmation
hearing that he doesn’t want a justice
who follows the “views of the legal elite.”
He later complained that “a bunch of elite
lawyers” such as nominee Ketanji Brown
Jackson “think that sentences for child
pornography are too harsh. I don’t and I
bet a lot of normal Americans don’t,
either.”
And who is this “normal American”
decrying the “legal elite”? Why, he’s a
graduate of Harvard College and Har-
vard Law School, a former clerk on the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit
and a former associate at two
W ashington-insider law firms who now
sits on the Judiciary Committee of the
U.S. Senate.
He’s part of a Republican Party of 2022
that has flipped the script on populism:
The gentry are revolting.
At the same hearings last week,
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) decried
a “managerial elite” of media, academics,
bureaucrats and corporations. “This ca-
bal think they are smarter and more
virtuous than the American people,” ar-
gued Kennedy, whose bio says he has a
“degree with first class honors from Ox-
ford University (Magdalen College).” This
man of the people — Phi Beta Kappa at
Vanderbilt, executive editor of the law
review at the University of Virginia and a
member of something called the Order of
the Coif — has been heard denouncing
the “goat’s-milk-latte-drinkin’, avocado-
toast-eating insider’s elite.”
Also on the dais during the proceed-
ings: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), a graduate of
Princeton and Harvard Law who loves to
inveigh against the “coastal elites,” and
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a former Su-
preme Court clerk out of Stanford Uni-
versity and Yale Law School who fancies
himself standing with the proletariat in
“the great divide” between the “leader-
ship elite and the great and broad middle
of our society.”
Three decades ago, Pat Buchanan,
himself a Washington insider, ran for the
Republican presidential nomination
claiming a revolution of “peasants with
pitchforks.” The latest Republican revo-
lution seems to be of the trickle-down
variety. Call it plutocrats with pitchforks.
Cruz, Hawley and Cotton are all con-
templating presidential runs — where
they might meet in the Republican pri-
mary another man of the people, Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis. A graduate of Yale
and Harvard Law, he wrote an op-ed in
the Wall Street Journal titled “Don’t Trust
the Elites,” and he rails routinely about
“elites” trying to shove this or that “down
the throats of the American people.”
These phonies must be on to some-
thing, because a new generation of pre-
tend populists aims to join them in the
Senate.
In Nevada, Republican candidate
Adam Laxalt portrays himself as a
m odern-day Robespierre. He has repeat-
edly warned of the “rich elites... taking
over America,” “elites in Washington,” the
“coastal elites,” the “elites” who “do not
believe in our nation” and the “elites”
who are “all in one club” while “we’re all
in another club.”
“We”? Laxalt is the grandson of a
U.S. senator and governor of Nevada and
the son of a Washington lobbyist. He is a
graduate of prep school, Georgetown
University and Georgetown Law School
who recently hauled in $2.2 million as a
partner at Cooper & Kirk, the same
Washington firm that employed those
plebeians Cotton and Cruz.
In Pennsylvania, Republican Dave
M cCormick, a Senate contender, is por-
traying opponent Mehmet Oz as the
darling of the “Hollywood elite” — and
himself as champion of the little guy. He
boasts about his youth spent baling hay
and bussing tables, and his ads are about
hunting, football, and an “us” vs. “them”
theme that targets Big Tech.
So who’s “us”? Well, McCormick was
head of one of the world’s largest hedge
funds. His wife is a Goldman Sachs
executive and White House veteran. A
who’s who of hedge fund billionaires is
financing his campaign.
In Arizona, Republican Senate candi-
date Jim Lamon professes to speak for
“we the people.” He denounced Washing-
ton for “being one of the richest Zip codes
in our country.”
This particular common man sold his
solar energy business to Koch Industries
for a price he put at $1 billion — and he
vows to self-fund his campaign with
$50 million.
Then there’s J.D. Vance, Republican
Senate candidate in Ohio, who bemoans
that “our elites don’t care about the
American people” and the “elites in the
ruling class in this country are robbing us
blind.”
“Us”? Before running for office, Vance,
another Yale Law School graduate, al-
lowed that it was “objectively true” that
he’s an elite. Now Vance even attacks
Republican elites, saying, “Establish-
ment Republican apologies for our oli-
garchy should always come with the
following disclaimer: ‘Big Tech pays my
salary.’ ”
So who pays Vance’s salary? CNBC
reported that “a great deal” of Vance’s
income came from ventures linked to Big
Tech billionaire investor Peter Thiel and
other tech investors.
That’s some elite-level phoniness.
DANA MILBANK
The phony rebellion of Ivy League Republicans
DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) during questioning of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji
Brown Jackson at her confirmation hearing on March 22.
By bringing all citizens
into our democratic
experiment, universal
voting would tell those
who run political
campaigns to stop
treating elections
like invitations
to exclusive parties.
