Harvard Law Review: Compulsory Voting’s American History

A new article in the Harvard Law Review discusses Universal Voting.

Voter turnout was higher in the 2020 U.S. presidential election than it had been in 120 years. Nearly sixty-seven percent of citizens over eighteen voted that November, exceeding rates that hovered around sixty percent in the twenty-first century and never broke sixty percent from 1972 to 2000. Some pundits have read this recent record as a triumph. But it can also be seen as a travesty: even with the best turnout since 1900, nearly eighty million eligible voters stayed home.

Slim turnout has long prompted reform efforts. Yet the United States has always shied from one direct solution: requiring everyone to vote. “Compulsory voting” — where legislatures require attendance at the polls, often enforced by fines or penalties — exists in around two dozen countries, but nowhere in America, relegating the idea to “goo-goo reformers” and law review notes.

Recently, however, compulsory voting has entered mainstream debate. President Obama floated the idea in 2015 to fight money in politics and diversify the electorate. A 2018 New York Times article piqued interest in Australia’s mandatory voting system. And in 2022, E.J. Dionne Jr. and Miles Rapoport published a popular book arguing that “universal civic duty voting” will end voter suppression, improve representation, and boost belief in government. Their work has inspired legislators in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington to introduce compulsory voting bills.

Read the full article in the Harvard Law Review here.