An election sign in the US city of Macon, Georgia (Image: AAP/EPA/John Amis)

In May 2022, 15.5 million Australians cast their ballots to elect a federal Parliament. Thanks to mandatory voting and a professional process administered by the independent Australian Electoral Commission, 89.8% of registered voters participated.

Whether they voted in Coogee or Noojee, Bicheno or Broome, Los Angeles or London, the same rules applied to everyone. No photo identification was required. No voter intimidation was permitted. Every effort was extended to make voting as accessible as possible. When the results were known, the outgoing Morrison government conceded defeat and power transferred seamlessly to the Albanese team within hours.

Elections in the US are very different. There is no nationwide election authority. Officials in the 3243 counties across the nation — ranging from tiny 82-person Kalawao County in Hawaii to the 10 million of Los Angeles County in California — administer the elections and count the ballots. Their tallies are overseen and certified by state secretaries of state, who are partisan politicians elected to their posts.

Voting rules and procedures are a hodgepodge of national, state and local regulations. In some jurisdictions, eligible voters can choose their representatives even more easily than Australians. In others, the inheritors of Jim Crow impose voter suppression tactics surgically tailored to disenfranchise minority voters.

US citizens in California need only collect their mail. California’s county officials send all registered voters their ballots via post. Voters have multiple options to complete and return them by election day, all designed to make participation as easy as possible. They can also vote in person at a polling booth if they prefer. California is one of eight states that conducts all elections via mail.

California is also one of 20 states (plus the District of Columbia) with automatic voter registration. Eligible citizens are enrolled to vote automatically when they interact with a government agency, unless they opt out. The agencies then share this information with voting officials, which ensures that electoral rolls remain current.

If eligible voters haven’t been enrolled automatically, California is one of 22 states (plus DC) that permits same-day voter registration through to election day. Same-day registration makes it easy for young adults and new citizens to participate in their democracy, instead of being excluded by bureaucratic barriers. California’s voters can also register online, as they can in 41 other states (and DC); California does all it can to help its 27 million eligible voters participate in their democracy.

Texas does the opposite. After loosening voting procedures in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas recorded its highest voter participation in decades, as registrations soared and two-thirds of registered voters cast their ballots. This spooked Texas’ Republican politicians, so they enacted a raft of measures to make voting more difficult. Their objective was purely partisan. They wanted to make it harder for people more likely to vote for Democrats to participate. This means young and minority voters.

Texas does not provide automatic voter registration. Texas does not offer online voter registration. Texas does not allow same-day voter registration. Texas makes it easy for people aged 65 and older to request a mail ballot, but cumbersome for others. Texas requires voters to present government-issued identification, yet limits which IDs are acceptable. Driver’s licences and gun permits are fine. Passports too. However, student IDs issued by government universities are not.

Over the past several years, Texas closed driver licensing offices in minority districts to make it harder for people to access approved identification. Trivial rules relating to signatures, dates and identification numbers on application forms and envelopes are designed to make it easier to reject mail ballots. In the March 2022 primary races, 12% of mail ballots were tossed out as a result.

Texas also shortened voting periods and restricted voting hours. It shut some polling booths and left others understaffed. Instead of making democracy available to all, Texas Republicans put sand in its gears. They want to protect their power by ensuring that they can pick their voters, rather than letting voters choose their own representatives.

In the Jim Crow era, white supremacists used poll taxes, language tests, constitutional quizzes and jelly bean counts to block Black voters. Now their methods are more subtle, but no less insidious.

Exploiting lies about “election integrity”, Republican-led states have unleashed a barrage of ploys to undermine democracy since the 2020 presidential race. Georgia made it a crime to distribute food or water to voters waiting in line, sometimes for hours. Pennsylvania insists voters mark mail ballot envelopes with the date, despite them being postmarked. States purge voters from their rolls with limited notice, leaving people unable to cast their ballots.

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis created an election police force, then arrested Black voters who had been issued with valid voter registration cards on drummed-up charges. The first case has already been thrown out of court, but the chilling effect served its purpose.

Republican-affiliated groups have filed more than 120 lawsuits aimed at stifling voters and voiding their ballots. Voting officials have been harassed and threatened, leading many to quit. Masked “poll watchers” carrying guns and wearing masks and bulletproof vests have staked out ballot drop boxes.

The cumulative intent of these efforts is to limit voter turnout. Despite Republicans’ claims, America’s elections have never been more transparent or secure. Republicans are doing this because they are afraid of democracy. They know American voters don’t support their extreme agenda. Rather than evolve to appeal to voters, they are determined to impose their will. Democracy stands in their way, so they intend to subvert it.

From afar the apparent chaos and apathy of American elections leaves many Australians shaking their heads and chalking it up as yet another example of America’s dismal condition. This is not altogether wrong. It is not a full and fair critique either. A clear majority of Americans want the same abortion rights and universal healthcare that Australians enjoy. They want affordable childcare, paid leave and sensible gun laws. But achieving these goals is not straightforward when voter suppression and gerrymandering rigs the system against their wishes.