Pay people to vote

An example of a fiscal carrot is a voucher for every eligible voter who actually votes: Cast a ballot, collect a check. This policy would be a potent response to the voting restrictions proliferating across the country. Those restrictions raise the cost of voting by adding time and hassle to the process. A voucher for every voter would offset that higher cost by increasing the benefit of voting. And if paying people to vote sounds outlandish, remember that’s exactly what we do for another civic duty: jury service. Every state compensates jurors for their work.

A second example, which could be a carrot or a stick, is funding for states that enact prodemocracy reforms. Congress could offer generous grants to states that institute policies such as automatic voter registration, mail-in voting, and independent redistricting commissions. Congress could also withhold election funds from states that refuse to take these steps. Federal dollars could thus be a reward for states that strengthen democracy—and a penalty for states that don’t.

City and county governments are a third potential group of funding recipients. In 2020, private donors gave hundreds of millions of dollars to municipalities to help them run their elections. Bizarrely, several red states have since prohibited these gifts. Congress could circumvent these bans by simply disbursing money to cities and counties, no strings attached, for election administration. These payments would enable municipalities to hire more election officials, to set up more polling places, to buy better equipment—in short, to make voting less of a chore.