Voting is incredibly popular these days. More people are voting in American elections than anyone alive today can remember.

It started in 2018, when 50% of eligible voters took part in what is ordinarily an off-year for balloting. That was the best turnout for a mid-term election since 1912, more than a century ago, when only white men could vote.

Then, in 2020, the numbers surged again. Two-thirds of the electorate voted in the presidential election – the highest turnout since 1900, almost a century-and-a-quarter ago.

Maine was third-highest, at 76%, but even in the lowest turnout state, Oklahoma, 55% voted – better than the entire nation as recently as 2000.

These numbers, even more than the results, send a message to elected officials at every level of government: Citizens want to vote, and they expect their votes to count.

Not everyone has listened. Republican legislators around the country think it’s the popularity of voting that’s the problem, and are doing their best to ensure there are fewer votes in 2022 and 2024.

In Georgia, in a photo-op that must be seen to be believed, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill – an hour after highly restrictive new voting provisions were rushed through House and Senate – flanked by six white male Republicans.

In the background was a pastoral scene, chosen by the First Lady, depicting Calloway Plantation, where more than 100 enslaved African-Americans labored for the white masters who owned them.

Outside the governor’s office, a black female legislator sought entrance to the bill-signing ceremony, was arrested by two burly white state troopers, then charged with two felonies.

No, we’re not making this up. This was not the Solid South disenfranchising the last black men who’d voted since Reconstruction, but lost the franchise around the turn of the 20th century, nor was it the 1965 march on Selma, where the late John Lewis had his skull fractured while defending the right to vote.

It was 2021: The last gasp of white men seeking to prevent others from exercising their right to vote under the U.S. Constitution.

Maine Republicans have been notably absent from vote suppression efforts. Aside from attempts to make it more difficult to qualify referendum questions, there are no new attempts to restrict voting.

They learned a lesson that Georgia Republicans, and those elsewhere, are about to discover all over again.

In 2011, Republicans took full control of Maine government for the first time since Gov. John Reed worked with a Republican legislature in 1964. They cut spending and revenues, and decided to make voting just a little harder.

They repealed Election Day voter registration, now offered in 21 states, explaining it was a terrible inconvenience for town clerks – though most clerks said it was no problem at all.

The Maine Democratic Party quickly launched a people’s veto, and amid a huge turnout, more than 60% of voters repealed the repeal. The short-lived law was called “An Act to Preserve the Integrity of the Voter Registration and Election Process.”

There are many provisions in the For the People Act that’s passed the U.S. House and awaits action in the Senate, where it will be revised; not all its components are sound. But perhaps the most important is allowing registration on Election Day, so even those who’ve moved, forgotten to register, or just want to vote for the first time, can do so.

Ballots are provisional and can be challenged, but Election Day registration removes many worries the pandemic created: Will mailed ballots get there on time? Did I meet all technical requirements, sometimes including notarization and photo IDs?

Poll workers can replace spoiled ballots and provide instructions on how to do it right. No one is left out.

By 2022, under the For the People Act, all 50 states will register voters on Election Day, and we’ll have “free and fair” elections. They’re the ones our diplomats have long sought around the world, but must be reaffirmed here at home.

The decay of democratic procedures – as much as the Capitol insurrection and the big lie from the former president who lost the election – is at the heart of America’s political crisis.

Even more than the American Rescue Act and Build Back Better Act, an amended We the People Act could be the Biden administration’s most important accomplishment.

Though one can’t yet say exactly how, it will ultimately pass. Under both the 14th and 15th Amendments, Congress “shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation,” and even a “packed” Supreme Court won’t say otherwise.

This is what should happen – what must happen. And it’s up to all of us to make sure that it does.

Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, reporter, opinion writer and author for 36 years, has published books about George Mitchell, and the Maine Democratic Party. He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net

Comments are not available on this story.