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The voter inclusion principle argues that vote suppression for partisan gain is virtually never legitimate, but increasing participation through legal and legislative maneuvers is legitimate and ethical, even if it is to the disproportionate benefit of one side. The previous chapters have discussed the ways in which the political parties have relentlessly violated this principle. This chapter explores how they can embrace it. The parties and candidates can play a primary role in strengthening democracy by increasing inclusion in a number of ways throughout the electoral process. Recommendations for partisan action are provided that follow the trajectory of this process, from voter registration through vote counting. The voter inclusion principle does not require that parties set aside partisanship or not seek electoral advantage. It does, however, require that parties do so by expanding the electorate.

This chapter discusses the passage of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), called the “motor voter” law, and its contribution to voter inclusion and voter participation. Passed in 1993, the NVRA opened up the voter registration process in a number of ways, including by requiring registration services at departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) and public assistance agencies, allowing voters to register by mail, and requiring state elections officials to supply voter registration drives with voter registration forms. NVRA has been responsible for literally tens of millions of new voter registrations, and as private legal actions against states for failure to implement the law have increased, and been successful, those numbers have continued to rise. The NVRA debate and litigation are also a case study of one party fighting, on the supposed basis of combating election fraud, a reform that was predicted to and has increased participation in the political process.

This chapter discusses the development of the voter inclusion principle. Election law should be used to encourage and boost voter participation, not make it unnecessarily difficult, or serve as a deterrent to citizen participation. The sanction for the kind of get-out-the-vote activities the Obama campaign engaged in is the fundamental democratic intuition that more political participation among citizens is always desirable. This intuition is used to develop a so-called principle of voter inclusion. The voter inclusion principle can serve as a useful guideline in analyzing when an election reform that is likely to increase turnout is of value, and in pinpointing the rare occasion when there might be legitimate justification for sacrificing the value of increased participation to promote some other end. There is no pure mathematical calculation that can be applied; it is a balancing of the equities that will lead to a policy that is most beneficial for democracy.

This chapter focuses on the years between the 1920s and the early 1960s, a time of relative stasis in the election process. One important exception to this trend of stagnation was the removal of the poll tax in some states. This movement toward inclusion was principally motivated by an understanding on the part of white politicians that poll taxes were having a bigger effect on poor whites than blacks. But as the country entered the Depression, there were new efforts to disenfranchise paupers or people on unemployment relief, although none met with great success. During the years of World War II, another major change in the voting system was the elimination of the whites-only primary, prevalent throughout the South. In 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled these primaries, exclusively adopted by the Democratic Party, unconstitutional. Because Democratic primaries had been practically a sure ticket to election throughout the South, state laws that stipulated that white citizens alone could participate in primary elections were an extremely effective measure for excluding African Americans from the decision-making process. With the 1944 Supreme Court ruling in Smith v. Allwright, however, that barrier was removed. Moreover, because the political allegiance of black voters had switched to the Democratic Party during the New Deal, the legal and political changes established the conditions for a significant change in party politics and electioneering in the South.