Today, June 30th, marks three years of work for 100% Democracy. It is certainly not easy to bring a dramatically different idea for how Americans should vote to the marketplace, regardless of how successful it has been in other countries. Add to that the challenges we face in even preserving the democracy we have. But we have made real progress, and we are insistent in saying ‘don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.' We are working to make universal voting a key part of the fully inclusive democracy America should have. This newsletter is to share with you the advances we have made, and our hopes and plans for the future.
Gaining Traction
One piece of advancing a new idea is to simply get people to start talking about it. Without overstating, that is happening in regard to universal voting in a significant number of venues. Here is just a small sampling of that discussion.
Three recent elections in countries where voting is a required civic duty tell a fairly remarkable story:
Australia: Australia has had universal voting for just over 100 years. They have gotten around 90% turnout in every election since 1924. In 2025, 98.2% of all eligible voters were registered, or 'enrolled', as the Australian Electoral Commission says. Of those enrolled; 90.7% came out to participate. And if you take the turnout in terms of all eligible voters, turnout was still 89.0%. This Bolts article, “An Egalitarian Pressure’ tells the story.
Uruguay: Last November, in an election that saw its long-running conservative governing coalition ousted, the turnout was over 90%. Uruguay has prided itself on its high turnout through its long-held compulsory voting system, evidenced here in thisNPR article.
Chile: Chile is an extraordinary example of the power of universal voting. From 2012-2021, Chile had voluntary voting. In 2022, universal voting was restored. The differences between the elections of 2020 and 2022 speak volumes. In 2020, of 14,796,000 registered voters, 7,511,000 voted– 50,8%. In 2022, with 15,174,000 registered, 13,030,000 Chileans voted- 85.9%, an increase of 35% from one to the next. The trend continued in 2023, with a turnout of 84.6% according to this article, Electoral Turnout Under Voluntary and Compulsory Voting: Evidence from Chile.
Out and About, Spreading the Word
The 100% Democracy team has been determined and energetic in getting out in places where democracy policy is being discussed. That has included making presentations and being a presence at public events and with organizations.
For the last three years, we have been at the National Conference of State Legislature’s Annual Summit. We’ve made presentations and had a booth every year, which has resulted in hundreds of conversations with legislators and staff from around the country.
Other venues where universal voting has been presented and discussed are the National Association of Secretaries of State, the State Innovation Exchange, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Our Common Purpose Commission, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and in April in Chicago, the Midwest Political Science Association’s annual conference.
Discussions with numbers of organizations, both national and state, have resulted in official endorsements of universal voting by a dozen organizations, including the NAACP, Public Citizen, Black Voters Matter, State Voices, Rank the Vote, Community Change, and the Working Families Party.
Seeing Progress in Legislative Arenas
Over the last three years, legislation has been introduced to advance universal voting in Washington State, Massachusetts, Utah, New York, Connecticut and Illinois. We have done public education work in all of them. In 2025, Connecticut and Illinois saw significant progress.
Connecticut: A bill to create a Task Force specifically to study how Connecticut could achieve 100% Voting Participation won broad support. 15 organizations testified in favor of the bill at the public hearing in March. The bill was approved by the Elections Committee, gained 29 co-sponsors, and actually passed the House of Representatives by a 2-1 margin. The bill had the votes to win in the Senate as well, but in the always-chaotic last days of the session, it was not called.
Illinois: After our Op Ed appeared in the Chicago Sun Times last August, two bills were introduced by the Election Committee Chairs in the House and the Senate to make voting a required civic duty in the state. A number of organizational supporters have already come forward, including Rainbow/PUSH, Illinois Citizen Action, and the League of Women Voters. Public hearings will be held in different parts of the state this summer and full, and a robust discussion is expected in the 2026 legislative session.
Moving Forward, Asking for Your Help
To end where we started, we have made real progress in our first three years. We have an excellent team in place, and we have learned many lessons. Most importantly we are excited by our prospect for the future, even in as uncertain a time as we are living in. There is more work to do in spreading the idea, in making universal voting part of the forward-looking democracy agenda, and in seeing policy advances at the state level.
Of course we can’t do it alone, and so we ask for your help. Here are a number of ways you can do that:
Invite 100% Democracy to speak in any appropriate venue you are connected with.
And of course, you can donate. We have made great strides on a small budget. But to take advantage of all the opportunities we have earned will take additional support. Please Donate by clicking the button below.
If you are interested in learning more, please visit our website. If you are interested in having a speaker to discuss universal voting at an event, endorsing universal voting publicly, or supporting the work financially, please contact Executive Director Miles Rapoport or National Legislative Organizing Director Raaheela Ahmed.
100% Democracy, c/o State Democracy Project, 77 Sands St, Brooklyn, New York 11201
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