By Ben Jealous
Guest Commentary
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 vio lence.
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 confi dence 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.