Imagine an American democracy remade by its citizens in the very image of its promise, a society where the election system is designed to allow citizens to perform their most basic civic duty with ease. Imagine that all could vote without obstruction or suppression. Imagine elections in which 80 percent or more of our people cast their ballots. And imagine how all of this could instill confidence in our capacity for common action. Lift Every Voice: The Urgency of Universal Civic Duty Voting, a report from the Working Group on Universal Voting convened by The Brookings Institution and The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, is offered with these aspirations in mind and is rooted in the history of American movements to expand voting rights. The report’s purpose is to propose universal civic duty voting as an indispensable and transformative step toward full electoral participation.
Program: Democracy
