Issues

Policies that register eligible citizens to vote whenever they interact with state agencies (DMV, Medicaid, etc.) unless they opt out, rather than requiring them to opt in.

Whether eligible citizens should be legally required to participate in elections, with modest penalties for unjustified non-voting — as practiced in Australia, Belgium, and several other democracies.

Whether voters should have to present documentary proof of citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — when registering to vote, beyond the attestation under penalty of perjury required by federal law.

Whether states should expand in-person early-voting windows to make voting more accessible or restrict them to control costs and reduce administrative complexity.

Whether federal Election Day should be a national holiday so that more voters — especially hourly and shift workers — can participate without conflicting work obligations.

The constitutional mechanism that elects the President via state-allocated electors rather than direct national popular vote.

State laws that strip voting rights from people convicted of felonies — from automatic restoration on release to permanent disenfranchisement — affect about 4.6 million U.S. citizens.

The practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to advantage one political party or group, and the reforms that aim to constrain it.

Whether districts for Congress and state legislatures should be drawn by independent commissions rather than by the legislatures whose members are being elected from those districts.

The rules governing voting by mail — universal mail ballots, no-excuse absentee, ballot return options, and signature verification — and how they affect turnout, security, and access.

Whether long-term noncitizen residents — including green-card holders and others paying local taxes — should be allowed to vote in municipal or school-board elections, even while federal voting remains restricted to citizens.

Election rules that let voters of any party affiliation cast primary ballots, or that send the top several finishers (regardless of party) to the general election.

Voters rank candidates in order of preference; if no candidate wins outright, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated and their votes redistributed until one candidate has a majority.

Whether voters should be allowed to register and cast a ballot on the same day at the polls, rather than registering days or weeks in advance of an election.

Voters score each candidate independently on a numeric scale (often 0–5); the candidate with the highest total or average score wins.

Whether and what kind of identification a voter must present at the polls — a perennial flashpoint between fraud-prevention and access-protection arguments.

How aggressively states should remove inactive or potentially ineligible voters from registration rolls, balancing roll hygiene against the risk of removing eligible voters who then face barriers at the polls.

Federal proposals (notably the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act) to restore preclearance and other VRA protections weakened by Shelby County v. Holder (2013).