Making elections fairer and easier for everyone

The 2026 midterm elec­tion pro­duced a local turnout of 43%, one of the high­est local midterm turnouts in recent mem­o­ry. This is pos­si­bly because of the num­ber of offices up for elec­tion, the close races in some dis­tricts, the addi­tion of a state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment on the bal­lot, and gen­er­al vot­er dis­sat­is­fac­tion with nation­al politics.

Regardless, there are many things which can be done to improve our elec­tion process, not just in Clark County or Kentucky but nationwide.

Most peo­ple don’t under­stand that the U.S. Constitution does not guar­an­tee a right to vote. In fact, those who have had the vot­ing priv­i­lege has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly over 250 years. Initially, only white males who owned prop­er­ty of a cer­tain amount could vote. This pro­vi­sion grad­u­al­ly van­ished as did poll tax­es, and intel­li­gence tests and, even­tu­al­ly, freed slaves (but only males), native Americans and women secured the right to vote, the lat­ter not until 1920. Even in some states, incar­cer­at­ed felons were still allowed to vote.

The Constitution says very lit­tle about vot­ing. Article I, Section 4 states very sim­ply: “The Time, Places and Manner of hold­ing Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be pre­scribed in each State by the Legislature there­of; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations except as to the Places of chus­ing Senators.” 

From the incep­tion of the Union, the states have cre­at­ed a myr­i­ad of reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the elec­tions there­in, with vir­tu­al­ly no two states observ­ing the exact same provisions.

Since Section 4 gives the Congress author­i­ty to alter the reg­u­la­tions with­in the states, per­haps it’s time to estab­lish some uni­ver­sal pro­vi­sions to gov­ern the entire coun­try and to attempt to gen­er­ate greater par­tic­i­pa­tion of eli­gi­ble vot­ers. This would be a great step for­ward because the United States has become a nation among the world’s democ­ra­cies with some of the low­est vot­er participation.

So here are a few sug­ges­tions for mak­ing elec­tions more acces­si­ble and more fair.

• Require each state to have inde­pen­dent redis­trict­ing com­mis­sions in lieu of the rul­ing par­ty over­see­ing redis­trict­ing and lim­it redis­trict­ing to cen­sus years.
• Restore pre­clear­ance allow­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to step in when states attempt to insti­tute pro­grams aimed at inhibit­ing vot­ing by spe­cif­ic sectors.
• Require auto­mat­ic reg­is­tra­tion when some­one applies for a driver’s license.
• Establish elec­tion day as a nation­al holiday.
• Determine uni­ver­sal vot­er ID require­ments and pro­vide a method of meet­ing those require­ments so that phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged and poor­er vot­ers have easy access to them.
• Establish voter/polling place ratios.  At one point Arizona had a polling place for every 2,500 vot­ers.  It closed a huge num­ber of polling places increas­ing the ratio to one per 22,000 voters.
• Automatic enfran­chise­ment of felons who have com­plet­ed their sen­tences or parole.  Too many states require a lengthy and cost­ly process for felons to re-acquire their vot­ing priv­i­lege, includ­ing gov­er­nors’ par­dons (as in Kentucky).
• Establish a nation­al bal­lot for­mat, prefer­ably one with a paper trail and machine tal­ly­ing, to speed the process of count­ing votes and ensure records for any nec­es­sary recounts.

One addi­tion­al reform deserves seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion, although it per­haps should be left to the states.

Only four states, in addi­tion to Kentucky, have off-cycle elec­tions, elec­tions that occur in years oth­er than when Representative and Presidential races occur (Kentucky will go to the polls again next year to vote for the Governor). These off-cycle elec­tions are cost­ly to the state and are bur­den­some to 120 coun­ty clerks here in Kentucky. Evidence sug­gests that elec­tions that occur more often reduce vot­er turnout. If these five states would shift their off-cycle elec­tions to years dur­ing bien­ni­al elec­tions, there would be less vot­er burnout and more vot­er turnout.