A Mandate for Nation-Wide Early Voting and Universal Voter Registration

There is, of course, no end to the sensible suggestions one hears from progressive people about the ways in which the United States could improve its elections. What interests me especially about the two excellent and profoundly democratizing suggestions discussed in this story in the NYT a couple of days ago, is to see the names attached to the actual bills that seek to implement these ideas and my delighted realization of the very different legislative environment these sponsors and supporters are going to inhabit in January.

“The single most important thing that Congress can do right now is create universal voter registration, which would mean that all eligible voters are automatically registered,” said Rosemary E. Rodriguez, the chairwoman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which oversees voting. “We also saw incredible success with early voting, and requiring states to adopt it would help as well.”

Ms. Rodriguez said universal registration would reduce the dependence on third-party groups like Acorn to sign up people and would remove the impetus for much of the pre-election litigation over who should be allowed to register.

Congress is already discussing the adoption of early voting nationwide. It now exists in 32 states in various forms.

A bill to do so was drafted last year by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and its co-sponsors included Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois. The bill was tabled after receiving little support from Congressional Republicans....

Early voting... eas[ed] the strain of turnout on Election Day[,] gave voters the chance to clarify their eligibility before Election Day, and it gave election officials more time to test and understand new machines and rules.

Legislation to expand registration [is also] likely to be introduced in the coming months...

“A system of automatic registration, in which the government bears more of the responsibility for assembling accurate and secure lists of eligible voters, is a necessary reform,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who is working on legislation intended to overhaul how eligible voters register, said Thursday. “All eligible Americans should be able to cast their ballot without barriers, and the registration problems we saw on Tuesday and during the weeks that preceded Election Day make clear that the system needs improvement.”

Elections Have Consequences, and among these are Consequences in the way we Have Elections.