Voting Rights Act

President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act 50 years ago. But the battle isn't over. With new barriers to voting and the hijacking of our elections, much reform is still needed.

1. Add a Voting Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
2. National, uniform election administration
3. Automatic and same-day voter registration
4. A national holiday, weekend election day; Expanded early voting and vote-by-mail
5. End felony disenfranchisement and other racially biased discrimination like Voter ID
6. Require non-voters to opt out, rather than voters to opt in with negligible cost to them
7. Publicly fund campaigns and ban private campaign contributions
8. End gerrymandering and reform the rules concerning majority-minority districts
9. Consolidate state and local elections with presidential and congressional races
10. Abolish the Electoral College
11. D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood
12. Proportional representation and ranked-choice voting
13. End elections of judges and prosecutors

Update (August 11):  A study from Rice University finds that confusion over photo identification requirements in Texas discouraged up to 9 percent of registered voters from voting even though they actually had valid forms of ID.

Update (February 4, 2019):  Reed Hundt makes the case for abolishing the Electoral College with the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

[I]f the national vote always chose the president, then the whole country would be far more likely to get what most people want from government than is the case today.

Update (November 22, 2020):  Paul Blumenthal points out how this year's election makes it even more imperative to abolish the Electoral College.

If the election were simply a measure of popular support, it would not matter if Biden prevailed in [the swing] states. And that means that [Dear Leader] would have no process to disrupt with his farcical claims of election fraud. He would also have no reason or ability to cajole, threaten or manipulate state and local officials to try to keep himself in office.