NYT Columnist Jamelle Bouie Supports Universal Voting

In a recent New York Times opinion article, columnist Jamelle Bouie makes the case for universal voting amid part of a larger conversation on what steps could be taken to improve the barriers to voting and increase voter participation.

Bouie: If we’re not going to have universal voting — which, I have been persuaded, would be desirable, where you have to go out and vote. You don’t necessarily have to cast a ballot for a candidate, but as a civic ritual, we all go out and vote.

But short of universal voting, I think it should be as easy as possible. You want to mail in a ballot? Go for it. You want to vote 10 days, two weeks before the election? Go for it. It doesn’t matter to me if the trade would be an ID requirement with IDs being readily available; that you can easily obtain an ID to prove your identification and then you can vote. It’s amazingly easy; the barriers are incredibly low. I would take that trade in a heartbeat, right?