A democracy worthy of its 250th birthday must make participation simple, secure, and within reach of every voter.
By Ben Jealous
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Americans aren’t just anxious about next year’s elections—they’re uneasy in a deeper way.
In 2025, voters across the political spectrum worry that our country is one overheated news cycle away from political violence.
At the same time, election officials are sounding alarms about something quieter but just as dangerous: there simply aren’t enough poll workers available to run our elections safely.
After years of threats, harassment, and burnout, thousands have walked away.
The people who keep democracy functioning are exhausted, and the voters they serve are fearful. On the eve of our nation’s 250th birthday, we are heading toward an election cycle with a system that feels overstretched and overstressed.
Moments like this should force us to remember what earlier generations did when democracy came under strain. In the fall of 1918, as the Spanish flu tore through Chicago, hospitals overflowed and neighborhoods fell under quarantine.
Yet the city refused to let democracy collapse.
Officials rushed paper ballots to residents’ homes. Nurses carried ballots to the sick; clerks delivered them to families behind closed doors. It was improvised and imperfect—but it worked.
Chicago proved something we need to remember now: when the ballot comes to the voter, democracy survives.
As America approaches its 250th year, we face a similar choice. Will we cling to systems that assume voters and poll workers will always be able to show up in person on the same day?
Or will we meet voters where they actually live—with a system designed for the pressures and possibilities of modern life?
For most of our history, we have expanded the right to vote only to surround that right with new hurdles.
We ended property requirements, ended slavery, enfranchised women, and passed the Voting Rights Act—yet we never made voting simple.
Access grew, but the process remained fragile.
Today, with election workers burning out and public confidence eroding, the fragility is showing.
Yet this difficult moment offers something unexpected: clarity. Both political parties now see what they once resisted—that high turnout can help them.
Donald Trump proved that energizing unlikely voters can reshape the map.
Democrats have long understood that expanding access brings in voters who otherwise sit out.
Now Republicans know it, too. Participation is no longer a partisan advantage.
It is a shared national opportunity.
That recognition makes this the hour for community leaders to rise together—so that when the 2026 legislative season arrives, our lawmakers are ready to shape elections that are simple, secure, and worthy of the nation’s 250th year.
A vote-at-home system is the clearest path to get there. A mailed-out ballot gives every voter the same chance to participate, whether they work a double shift, care for elders or children, lack transportation, or simply want the quiet time to study candidates without someone sighing behind them in line.
And these systems are secure. Every ballot carries a unique barcode voters can track like a package. Signatures are verified against those on file. Bipartisan teams handle ballots at every step.
States like Colorado, Utah, and Oregon have shown that mailed ballots increase participation, build trust, and make elections easier to run and harder to disrupt.
Pennsylvania and Virginia now sit at the heart of whether the nation follows this path.
Pennsylvania’s no-excuse mail voting, adopted in 2019, remains uneven after years of lawsuits and conflicting rulings. Standardizing procedures so every voter receives the same information and the same opportunity to correct mistakes would stabilize a system that often determines national outcomes.
Virginia—already further along than any Southern state—needs only the confidence to finish the transition. Mailing ballots to all active voters, with a simple opt-out and a clear statewide education effort, would give the Commonwealth a model of civic strength heading into 2026.
The 250th anniversary of the United States should not be a moment simply to celebrate our democratic inheritance. It should be the moment we improve it.
If we want a democracy strong enough for the next 250 years, we must bring the ballot home—back to the kitchen table, where Americans make their best decisions.
Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and former national president and CEO of the NAACP.
