Democracy Shouldn't Come With a Price Tag

In 2023, Ohio passed a sweeping set of voting restrictions – including one of the nation’s strictest voter identification laws to date. To cast a ballot, Ohioans must now present one of four types of government-issued photo ID, severely limiting the options available. Gone is the potential for a veteran to show their county-issued ID, or a student to use the identification issued to them by their college. The result was thousands of voters having their ballots rejected in the elections that followed.

Attempts to restrict voting access are incredibly unpopular with voters. New research from our organization, All Voting is Local, found that 83% of Americans agree it should be as easy as possible for American citizens to exercise their Constitutional right to vote. This finding remains consistent across party lines: 92% of Democrats, 83% of Republicans, and 82% of Independents agree with that view. Yet each year, states across the country advance policies that create new economic and legal barriers to the ballot under the guise of election integrity.

These assaults on voting rights can feel amorphous in concept. But what would happen if we could quantify them? Our study analyzed the cost implications of these types of policies and found that a first-time voter will spend an average of $105.53 to cast a ballot. That cost accounts for cash outlays like the cost of a driver’s license (about $35, on average) as well as collateral costs such as hourly wages lost to travel to polling places and waiting in line to vote (more than half of all states do not require employers to provide paid time off for voting). Gas, public transit, or an Uber to the polling place would bring the cost up even further. 

Nearly 38 million Americans are living in poverty, and for them, $105 is a make-or-break amount of money. That’s about the same price as an average week’s worth of groceries or a week of heating costs. Casting a ballot in the Presidential election, or feeding your family for a week? To spend the time voting, or make an afternoon of wages? These are the trade-offs we’re asking millions of voters in this country to make – and for voters living in states where policymakers are creating new barriers each election cycle, that price tag becomes an increasingly high obstacle. What these anti-voter policies and the people behind them refuse to acknowledge is that the fees associated with voting have real and lasting implications for people’s lives. 

Voting is not a luxury; it is a fundamental right. And unfortunately, pricing people out of their rights as citizens is not a new phenomenon. Following the end of the Civil War, all 11 former Confederate states, as well as some northern states, adopted a poll tax that people had to pay in order to register to vote. It effectively denied African Americans the right to vote. The poll tax was formally abolished in 1964, but many states came up with various strategies to maintain a voting tax or introduce other barriers to voting, especially for voters of color.

A modern-day poll tax, like we found in our report, is just one way that the campaign to silence the voices of people of color and low-income communities continues today – especially when you consider that about 90% of those living in poverty in the U.S. are non-white. Robert Spindell, a top election official in Wisconsin, openly boasted about a voter suppression scheme that he claimed diminished Black and Latino turnout in Milwaukee in the 2022 elections, claiming the decrease in votes was a direct result of a “multi-facetted [sic] plan.” That same year in Arizona, Jim Fillmore, a state legislator who introduced a bill that would have significantly restricted voter access, said it plainly enough: “We need to get back to 1958-style voting.” 

Despite the lack of evidence to support claims of widespread voter fraud in the United States, officials often assert that their restrictive policies and schemes are combating such fraud. These policies are instead a solution in search of a problem, and they’re costing voters their rights. And, just as with hidden sticker prices on registering and casting a ballot, voters of color are disproportionately impacted by restrictive voting laws.

Voters are forced to pay with their time and money to participate in our democracy. With fewer than five months remaining until the general election, voters and our elected leaders alike need to know that the consequences of these anti-voter policies force some American citizens to choose between casting a ballot and meeting their basic needs. That choice is fundamentally unjust and out of sync with American ideals.