Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

by Steven Levitsky

Voting in America should be as straightforward as it is in democracies in Europe and elsewhere. This means we should do the following: 1. Pass a constitutional amendment establishing a right to vote for all citizens, which would provide a solid basis to litigate voting restrictions. 2. Establish automatic registration in which all citizens are registered to vote when they turn eighteen. This could be accompanied by the automatic distribution of national voting ID cards to all citizens. The burdens of the registration process should not deter anyone from voting. 3. Expand early voting and easy mail-in voting options for citizens of all states. It should be easy for all Americans to cast ballots. 4. Make Election Day a Sunday or a national holiday, so that work responsibilities do not discourage Americans from voting. 5. Restore voting rights (without additional fines or fees) to all ex-felons who have served their time. 6. Restore national-level voting rights protections. In the spirit of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, parts of which the Supreme Court struck down in 2013, we should reinstate federal oversight of election rules and administration. This could apply only in states and localities with a history of voting rights violations, following the VRA model, or to all jurisdictions equally, following the model of the 1890 Lodge bill. 7. Replace the current system of partisan electoral administration with one in which state and local electoral administration is in the hands o...