The United States consistently underperforms on a critical measure of the health of its democracy: voter turnout, meaning the percentage of eligible voters who actually cast a vote in elections. Voter turnout in the U.S. is much lower than in other countries, hovering around 60% in presidential elections and falling to just 40% in midterms. When researchers at the Pew Research Center compared turnout among the voting-age population in the 2020 presidential election to recent elections in 49 other nations with highly developed economies and solid democratic traditions, the U.S. came in 31st. 

Alongside get-out-the-vote efforts that happen right before elections, long-term policy-oriented campaigns are underway nationwide to boost voter turnout in the U.S., including making Election Day a national holiday to give voters time off to cast their ballots, rolling out automatic and pre-registration options, and expanding vote-at-home options. “Generating higher voter turnout is critical toward building a healthy democracy that works for everyone,” says Andrea Hailey, CEO at Vote.org.

Several factors influence voter turnout in every nation, including voter enthusiasm; candidates and issues; and whether the election is a presidential, midterm, or local election. The U.S. is unique in its complex and patchwork state-led voting system, which creates stumbling blocks for would-be voters at every turn. “One of the largest contributors to low voter turnout in the U.S. [are] the laws that govern voting,” says Gayle Alberda, a professor of politics and public administration at Fairfield University.

Depending on where a voter lives, they must navigate a series of hurdles, including registering to vote, requesting an absentee ballot or locating a polling place, and ensuring they have the documents required to cast a ballot before they even get to the ballot box. These burdens are multiplied for some groups, including individuals with limited English proficiency, students attending college away from home, those in rural or low-income areas, and disabled people to whom registration processes or polling locations may be inaccessible. “This process places the burden of voting on the individual,” says Alberda, making it less likely people will turn out to vote.

Organizations focused on voter education and mobilization, including community groups and national giants such as Vote.org and VoteRiders, backed by tens of thousands of volunteers, help eligible voters navigate these complexities each election cycle. Their efforts are vital, but the groups are fighting an uphill battle. The nation also needs policy interventions to streamline the burdensome election system and ensure more Americans can access the democratic process. 

Making Election Day a national holiday is one such intervention that has gained steam and even Congressional backers in recent years. “Work-related barriers hold back as many as 35% of non-voters from going to the polls,” says Hailey, citing data from a Pew Research Center survey conducted after the 2014 midterms. Currently, “time off to vote” laws vary widely across the country, and fewer than half of U.S. states require employers to provide paid time off for employees to vote.

Representative Anna G. Eshoo introduced the Election Day Holiday Act in 2024 to standardize state rules by making Election Day a federal holiday. Hailey says her organization hopes the bill is passed “so every voter has the flexibility they need to vote.” In the absence of a federal mandate, in August 2024, Vote.org launched a national campaign challenging businesses to guarantee paid time off for their employees to vote on or before Election Day. 

While making Election Day a national holiday is a simple way to signal the importance of civic participation, researchers and voting rights advocates say the intervention should be coupled with changes to how people register to vote and cast their ballots. Research from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University suggests that automatic and pre-registration options significantly positively impact turnout, especially among young voters. 

With automatic voter registration (AVR), eligible voters are automatically registered when they utilize the services of a state agency, such as when they apply for a driver’s license or identification card at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Those who do not want to register to vote can opt out. “Studies show that automatic voter registration does increase voter registration and slightly increases voter turnout as it does eliminate a key barrier to voting, the registration process,” says Alberda. 

Oregon was the first state to implement AVR in 2016, and data from the first year of implementation showed that AVR added more than a quarter of a million voters to the state’s rolls. Of that group, 36% were first-time registrants, and the group was younger and more ethnically diverse than the population of voters who had registered before automatic registration went into effect. A total of 22 states nationwide have enacted AVR policies so far. From Oregon’s introduction of AVR in 2016 to the 2018 voter registration deadline, Oregon and seven other states with new AVR programs added a combined 2.2 million voters to the rolls.

Another innovation in voter registration is pre-registration, which allows young people to register to vote before reaching voting age. Many states allow 17-year-olds to register to vote as long as they will turn 18 before the next federal election. Some go even further and allow those as young as 16 to pre-register. This approach eliminates the challenge of reaching would-be voters for the first time when they turn 18, an age at which many are transitioning into college life or new jobs away from home.

Pre-registration also allows young people to become familiar with the election process while still in school and rooted in a community. These factors encourage an enduring sense of civic responsibility and can turn teenagers into lifelong voters, according to Ava Mateo, president of voter organization 18by Vote. “Pre-registering to vote not only provides pathways for younger people to be involved in the civic process earlier, but it also, through our experience, has shown to have a positive impact on youth voter turnout,” she says.

Expanding vote-by-mail is another way to boost voter turnout. With this method, which resembles absentee balloting, the government mails ballots to eligible voters, and the voter marks their ballot at home and returns it before a deadline. Currently, eight states and Washington, D.C., mail paper ballots to every registered voter before every election. Many voters also got a taste of this system when in-person polling locations had to be closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and states temporarily shifted to mail balloting. 

Alberda says that shift helped drive “record-high turnout” in the November 2020 election. Most states only offer vote-by-mail for absentee voters in limited cases, and moving toward universal mail balloting could give turnout another boost. Similar to making Election Day a national holiday to ensure paid time off for voting, allowing people to vote from home eliminates work-related barriers that prevent so many Americans from getting to the polls. Recent research from the National Vote at Home Institute, a research and advocacy nonprofit, suggests that implementing vote-by-mail could boost turnout by as much as 3 to 4 points in some jurisdictions.

For Barbara Smith Warner, executive director of the National Vote at Home Institute, expanding vote-by-mail is not only a matter of engaging more voters but also of showing respect for voting as a fundamental right. “If you think voting is a right, it should be as convenient and voter-centric as possible, and nothing is easier than sending everybody their damn ballot.”

Some innovations to expand voter access have faced criticism from conservatives, who claim they could open the door to voter fraud. However, there is no evidence to back assertions that mail balloting leads to illegal voting. Errors with automatic voter registration programs are also rare and mitigable. In Oregon, where it has recently come to light that some voters were mistakenly registered through the automatic system without showing requisite proof of citizenship, the state is following up on individual cases. The Oregon Secretary of State’s office emphasized that the records show evidence of clerical errors, meaning that clerks had mistakenly identified people as U.S. citizens when they obtained a driver’s license, even though they had not provided proof of citizenship. Previously, in cases such as this, many of the registrants were, in fact, citizens and only needed to provide a missing document to update their registration.

While pro-democracy organizers fight to protect the right to vote and boost the nation’s relatively low voter turnout on multiple fronts, they are also forced to confront harmful conservative narratives that paint expanding voter access as potentially leading to fraud. They are also up against regressive legislation from Republican lawmakers to restrict rather than expand access to the polls. The nonpartisan research group Voting Rights Lab has tracked a surge in restrictive voter identification laws, restrictions on mail voting, and other policies undermining voting rights in the last decade. 

Advocates argue that the struggle to expand access and boost turnout is nonpartisan, and legislation to restrict voting is a threat to all. “Voter suppression threatens the constitutional rights of every American,” says Hailey. “The best way to safeguard the foundations of our democracy is to empower the electorate and ensure every voter has the opportunity to make their voice heard.”