From Jonathan Bernstein:
Automatic registration is effective, democratic and long overdue. Why is only one party supporting it?
For years, Democrats dealt with this issue by going into a defensive crouch: They tried to challenge voter-ID laws and other restrictions in legislatures, state courts and federal courts. Now they’ve gone on the offensive, with significant results.
Automatic registration is one of many provisions included in the first major bill passed by House Democrats this year, a sprawling combination of measures intended to make voting easier and otherwise reform the U.S. electoral system. It’s not going anywhere with a Republican majority in the Senate, but it will likely be a high priority the next time Democrats have unified control of the government. Whether they could pass it over a filibuster is an open question, but it’s not hard to imagine them at least thinking about removing the filibuster to pass such a measure.
And Republicans? Their standard rhetoric on this issue focuses on fraud. That’s never been a good fit with voter-ID laws (since voter impersonation at polling sites is extremely rare). But it makes even less sense for fighting laws that shift the burden of registration to the states. Unfortunately, some partisans have even started treating difficulty in voting as a virtue; the electorate is improved, they say, if it’s restricted to those who are willing and able to jump through hoops to get to the polls.
For those of us who think voting should be easy, the good news is that a few Republican states (Alaska, Georgia, West Virginia) have started adopting variations of automatic registration. Perhaps it’ll become a trend that eventually goes national. It should.