Voting is valued across the world. Even highly authoritarian regimes like Russia, North Korea or the People's Republic of China try to legitimize their rule by holding sham, non-competitive elections and claim that their rulers are "elected" by the people even if no real opposition was allowed.

Representative democracies like Canada, the United Kingdom or the United States hold elections that are more meaningful because the winner is not pre-determined.

Democracies are founded on the enduring yet fragile idea that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. This principle, the cornerstone of any democratic republic, is made real by critically important act of voting in competitive elections. Candidates must be free to put their hat in the ring and agree in advance to abide by the results. Thus, the right to vote is more than a privilege or a civic duty; it is the fundamental mechanism that translates the will of the people into legitimate political power. It is, quite simply, a non-negotiable foundation of any democracy.

To appreciate the importance of competitive elections, it is helpful to recognize its cost.

First, there is the cost of who can vote. The history of American suffrage is not a story of a right freely given, but one of decades, even centuries, of struggle. It took a bloody civil war to secure the 15th Amendment, ensuring the right to vote could not be denied based on race, though subsequent discriminatory practices attempted to nullify it. It took generations of activism and protest, led by relentless women, to achieve the 19th Amendment, affirming that gender was not a bar to political participation. Later, the idealism of youth fueled the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age to 18. Each step was a battle waged and won to make our democracy more inclusive and representative of the nation it governs.

Even if all can vote, if some candidates cannot run or the cost of campaign finance is prohibitively high, real competitive elections cannot take place. In other words, in a real democracy, the entire ruling elite, elevated by election, must be subject to removal by a subsequent election. Elections are not mere formalities designed to legitimize the rulers with pro-ordained outcomes. They are the moments when all citizens have a say in hiring and firing their representatives, e.g., general elections. When every eligible voice is heard, the government is incentivized to serve the broad public interest rather than oligarchies which keep the elites in power. It forces those in power to operate within the consent of the people, knowing that come election day, they must again stand before their constituents to be judged. Without a free and fair electoral process, this crucial link between the ruler and the ruled dissolves, and the entire democratic structure begins to crumble into oligarchy or autocracy.

Currently, we are witnessing attempts to both restrict access to the ballot box through voter suppression and sow corrosive doubt about the integrity of election outcomes. This dual attack—on the ability to vote and the faith in the count—is a direct threat to self-governance. When we allow voting to become unduly difficult, we disenfranchise communities and when we permit misinformation to erode trust in the process, we weaken the public's confidence, making the results appear illegitimate regardless of the outcome.

The work of saving democracy, therefore, must include focusing on elections. It requires an active commitment to fair voting access, opposition to voter suppression and fighting against campaign disinformation. It also requires a large voter turnout again and again.

The bottom line is that just having elections does not guarantee democracy. They must be, free, open and result in the possibility of removing the government and replacing it with a more popular one.