Voting Rights Project

Dear Potential Voters,

If we live in a democratic society then everyone should be able to, should, and should want to vote. In the past there have been obstacles to voting, designed to prevent certain people from voting, and people have fought long and hard to get their right to vote. Everybody has the right to vote but that doesn’t mean everyone can. Even now there are still obstacles to voting, or else almost all of our country would vote. The goal of this letter is to outline several ways to increase voter participation. Petitioning the government to make these changes would significantly increase voter participation.

There are several ways to increase voter participation, first we could make election day a national paid day off. A lot of times people have work, and don’t have time to vote, and if they don’t have to choose between work and voting then voting participation will increase significantly. For example, a single parent, who has to work all day, and barely has time to get home and feed their children wouldn’t have time to vote. But if voting is a national paid day off then single parents would be able to vote and still get the money they would get working, so they don’t have to worry about not having enough money. The paid day off would be paid for by the employer.

Another way to increase voter participation would be to have same day registration, which would allow people to register on voting day, and then vote that same day. Registering in advance was originally made as a voting obstacle, targeting the stream of immigrants that were coming into the country. So eliminating this obstacle makes sense to increase voting participation. Some states have already tried this, and saw a significant increase in voters. Studies have shown that when states put in same day registration voter participation increases by at least 5%.

It could also help if we make it so everyone can vote by mail. This could bring great convenience for hard working families so they don't have to take too much time out of their day to vote. In the 2020 election 45% of voters voted by mail. This shows that almost half of the voters found it more convenient to vote by mail.

To increase voter participation we could also make voting locations more convenient to the voters. Like adding more places to vote in more rural places, as well as the city. We could also add transportation for people who maybe don’t have cars or some kind of transportation vehicle, maybe like a PVTA bus stop at every place of voting.

The meaning of this letter is to explain what we need to change about voting in this country. And remember for any of these ideas to work one would need to petition the government. To live in a true democracy everyone should be able to vote, not just be allowed to. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

KK and James