“There’s a good policy reason why Clinton might support universal voting, but there’s also a good political reason,” Rick Hasen, a voting law expert, tells me. “These are issues that motivate the Democratic base. Talking about Republicans suppressing the vote gets Democrats excited, just like talking about voter fraud motivates Republicans.”
Indeed, Clinton’s proposal today seems likely to draw opposition from conservatives and Republicans. For one thing, they would probably seize on the chance to attack her for favoring another government mandate and federal encroachment on states, and also to argue that government mandated registration could produce other types of fraud. The Clinton camp will probably try to pitch this proposal — and her push for more voting access in general — in a way that rebuffs GOP efforts to turn independents against it, casting it as key to maintaining the integrity of the process.
For another thing, as Hasen has noted elsewhere, the battle over voting access revolves around a much deeper dispute, in which some opponents of increased access have explicitly argued that making voting harder actually leads not only to less voter fraud but to more informed choices.
“There are two ways of thinking about voting,” Hasen tells me. “The first, which is associated with conservatives, is that voting is about choosing the best candidate. If you take that view, you might want restrictions that winnow out uninterested or uneducated voters. Democrats and liberals are more likely to take the second view — that we should all have an easy way to vote and share in political power.”
That seems like an argument the Clinton campaign might want to have.