Inching in the right direction

[T]he increasing adoption of automatic voter registration over the past five years has led to a big boost in the voter rolls in states that have implemented the new system, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.

[...]

Advocates say this is an effective way to expand the electorate, and the Brennan report appears to back that up. It found that registrations rose between 9 and 94 percent in seven states and the District of Columbia, owing to their automatic registration systems. The increase was greatest in Georgia (93.7 percent) and lowest in the District of Columbia (9.4 percent)

  NPR

I'm surprised that Georgia has gone to AVR.

Five years ago, no state had automatic voter registration, but the idea is quickly catching on. Today, 11 states and the District of Columbia have AVR and another six are in the process of implementing it.

[...]

Even as Democrats have embraced AVR as part of their platform of changes to election laws, the policy has also been adopted in GOP-dominated states such as Georgia and West Virginia.

Surprised again.

Still, little is known about the impact of the new registration system on voter turnout. The Brennan report did not study whether more voters actually cast ballots. Perez says that it would make sense that increased registrations would lead to higher turnout because political parties and interest groups use the voter rolls to make phone calls, send out mail and knock on doors as part of their get-out-the-vote campaigns.

"All of those things have proven to be helpful in turning voters out and that won't happen if people aren't registered," she says.

[...]

Some Republicans have also expressed reservations about automatic voter registration, saying it could lead to ineligible voters being registered by mistake. They opposed a wide-ranging overhaul of election laws passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representative last month, which would require all states to implement AVR. Republicans call it an unwarranted federal intrusion into elections, which are generally run by the states. The GOP-controlled Senate is not expected to even bring up that legislation.

No surprise there at all.