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Joyce McClure, Bridge2Blue
I cast my first presidential ballot in 1968, for Richard Nixon.
That probably wasn’t surprising. My parents were Kansas Republicans, and I grew up in a Republican household.
Years later, I came to understand that the party labels meant something different then. Republicans still had a substantial liberal and moderate wing, while conservative Southern Democrats remained a powerful force in the Democratic Party. The political realignment that would reshape both parties was underway.
By 1969, I was living in New York City—a world away from Kansas. My own politics changed, too.
Years later, I told my mother that I had become a Democrat. She was appalled. But something more important didn’t change. My parents taught me that you vote.
For my father, elections weren’t abstract. He was a city manager, involved in local government every day. His position required him to remain publicly neutral, but he understood better than most of us that elections have consequences. The people voters put into office made decisions that directly affected the community he managed—and his ability to do his job.
I grew up understanding that government wasn’t something that happened somewhere else. Elections determined who made the decisions, and those decisions affected people’s lives.
Candidates changed. Parties changed. I changed. Voting didn’t.
Which makes me wonder: Where do we learn that voting is something we’re supposed to do?
One Out of Three Americans Didn’t Vote
In the 2024 presidential election, 65.3 percent of America’s citizen voting-age population voted, according to the Census Bureau. Turn the statistic around: roughly one out of every three adult American citizens didn’t vote.
And presidential elections are when Americans are most likely to show up. Virginia illustrates the drop-off. More than 70 percent of registered Virginia voters cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election. Turnout was only 54 percent when Virginians elected a governor in 2025, 49 percent in the 2022 congressional midterms and 41 percent in the 2023 General Assembly elections.
Yet those lower-turnout elections choose many of the officials making decisions closest to our daily lives. Why?
The Pew Research Center asked nonvoters. Thirty-five percent said a major reason was that they didn’t think their vote would make a difference. Thirty-one percent said they didn’t like politics. Seventeen percent didn’t care who won. Others weren’t registered, found voting inconvenient or simply forgot.
Some face practical barriers. Work interferes. Children get sick. Shifts run late. People move and registrations get overlooked.
In Virginia we have 45 days of early voting. So perhaps we also have a cultural problem.
Ask an Australian
My Australian friends find our approach to voting rather curious. That’s because they have to vote. Australia has had compulsory voting in federal elections since 1924. Eligible citizens are also required to enroll, removing one hurdle that keeps some Americans from reaching the ballot box. Those who fail to vote without an acceptable reason can be fined. And Australians show up. Turnout in federal elections routinely approaches 90 percent of enrolled voters.
The comparison seems irresistible:
United States: voting is voluntary, and millions of eligible citizens don’t participate.
Australia: voting is compulsory, and roughly nine out of ten enrolled voters show up.
Case closed. Except it isn’t.
Making people participate doesn’t necessarily make them politically knowledgeable. An Australian can know little about the candidates and still satisfy the legal requirement. A voter can also cast an informal ballot that isn’t counted.
So we need to distinguish among three things:
- Participation: Did you vote?
- Engagement: Did you care enough to pay attention?
- Knowledge: Did you understand the candidates and issues?
They aren’t the same thing.
And Then There’s India
India complicates the story. Nearly a billion Indians were eligible to participate in the country’s 2024 general election. Voting is not compulsory, yet roughly two-thirds participated.
Education doesn’t provide an easy explanation. Average educational attainment in India is considerably lower than in either the United States or Australia. That doesn’t tell us whether Indian voters are better or worse informed. But it does tell us something: Education alone cannot explain why people vote.
Nor can access to information. Americans have more political information available than any generation in history. More information doesn’t necessarily make us better informed.
What Makes Someone a Voter?
Education does matter. The Census Bureau found a striking turnout difference in 2024: 82.5 percent of citizens with advanced degrees voted, compared with 52.5 percent of high-school graduates.
Age matters. Income matters. Registration rules matter. Whether an election seems competitive matters.
But something else matters, too: Habit.
People who think of themselves as voters tend to vote. That’s what my parents gave me—not a lifelong political party. I took care of changing that myself. They gave me the idea that voting was something a citizen did.
Australia reinforces that expectation through law and culture. Federal elections are held on Saturdays. Early and postal voting are available. Polling places can become community gatherings, complete with the famous “democracy sausage.” Our elections are held on Tuesdays.
India has developed its own culture of mass electoral participation without compulsory voting.
Other than bars that have straw polls, election day is not a celebration. So perhaps we’re asking the wrong question.
- Not: Which country’s voters are responsive?
- But: What makes someone believe, “I’m a voter. This is what I do”?
And Then There’s Virginia
That question has particular significance in Virginia this year.
Virginia’s Constitution currently provides that a person convicted of a felony loses the right to vote unless the governor restores that person’s civil rights. Gov. Abigail Spanberger has restored voting and other civil rights to tens of thousands of Virginians with past felony convictions who have served their time.
But on November 3, Virginia voters will decide whether to make a more fundamental change.
Question 3 would establish a fundamental right to vote for qualified Virginians and automatically restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies once they are released from incarceration. No application. No waiting for a governor.  While incarcerated for a felony, you cannot vote. Once released, you regain the political rights of citizenship.
The Strange Contradiction
And here we arrive at one of the stranger contradictions in American democracy. There are Virginians who lost their voting rights and want them back. At the same time, there are Virginians who already possess that right and won’t use it.
Some people are fighting to get into the voting booth. Others can’t be persuaded to go. Maybe we’ve become very good at talking about voting as a right and less comfortable talking about it as a responsibility.
Australia explicitly treats participation as a civic obligation. America doesn’t. And perhaps that’s as it should be. The freedom to vote includes the freedom not to vote. Choosing to stay home can itself be a political statement. But it is a statement with an unusual consequence: If you don’t vote, the people who do vote make decisions without you.
I’m not suggesting that we fine Americans who stay home. But perhaps Australia has identified something we’ve allowed ourselves to forget. Democracy requires participation.
The Decisions Will Be Made
A ballot isn’t a valentine to a candidate. You don’t have to love anyone whose name appears on it. You can believe Congress is dysfunctional, politicians are dishonest, and political advertising ought to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. You can believe all of that and still vote. Because staying home doesn’t stop the election. Someone still becomes governor. Someone still goes to Congress. Someone still sits on the school board.
And this November, the Virginians who show up will decide whether people who have completed their incarceration for a felony should automatically regain their right to vote. The decisions will be made.
When I was growing up in Kansas, my parents didn’t give me a lecture about voter participation. They didn’t have to. You voted.
Maybe that simple expectation is something worth recovering. Not because everyone will make the same choices. They shouldn’t. Not because every voter will be perfectly informed. They won’t be. But because democracy ultimately depends upon citizens who believe that choosing their government is not merely something they have a right to do.
It’s something citizens do.
Early voting in Virginia begins on Friday, September 18. Exercise the right generations of Americans fought to secure—and stand up for the voting rights of your fellow citizens.
