--- title: Politics: Voting Shouldn't Be Optional description: Making voting required, asking the world's poor what they want, fixing the refugee asylum process and more. canonical: https://time.com/4049952/voting-shouldnt-be-optional/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-25T16:01:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:16:27.364Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Voting Shouldn't Be Optional og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4049952/voting-shouldnt-be-optional/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Voting Shouldn't Be Optional twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Voting Shouldn't Be Optional by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 25, 2015 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 25, 2015 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**Voting shouldn’t be optional.**](http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/09/21-universal-voting-galstone-dionne/universal%5Fvoting.pdf) By William A. Galston and E.J. Dionne, Jr. at the Brookings Institution **2\.** [**We spend foreign aid without finding out what the poorest really need. That should change.**](http://aeon.co/magazine/society/why-we-need-data-on-what-the-poorest-think/) By Claire Melamed in Aeon **3\.** [**It’s the travel that’s killing them. So here’s a plan to fix the asylum process in Europe’s refugee crisis.**](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/opinion/let-refugees-fly-to-europe.html) By Alexander Betts in the New York Times **4\.** [**Want to add $12 trillion to the global economy? Tackle gender inequality.**](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/24/tackling-gender-inequality-could-add-12tn-to-world-economy-study-finds) By Heather Stewart in the Guardian **5\.** [**Could this hyper-efficient house save the planet?**](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/the-house-that-could-save-the-world-213159) By Sara Solovitch in Politico Magazine [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4049952/voting-shouldnt-be-optional/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4049952/voting-shouldnt-be-optional/"},"headline":"Voting Shouldn't Be Optional","datePublished":"2015-09-25T16:01:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:16:27.364Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4049952/voting-shouldnt-be-optional/","keywords":["Innovation","gender","Refugees","Voting"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4049952/voting-shouldnt-be-optional/","name":"Voting Shouldn't Be Optional"}}]}] ```