And yet, last week, West Virginia found some common ground with Oregon and California – it followed in the footsteps of those two states by approving a measure that would automatically register its citizens to vote once they interact with the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
Considering West Virginia doesn’t have a reputation for being a progressive bastion, it’s surprising it has become only the third state in the country to take this step, ahead of more likely suspects like Vermont, Massachusetts or Rhode Island. But automatic registration was tacked onto a voter ID bill by Democrats in the legislature and, in stark opposition to their counterparts elsewhere, Republicans went along with it. In fact, Bill Cole, a Republican and the president of West Virginia’s Senate, remarked “If managed properly, automatic registration is a great benefit to our citizens and will encourage more people to go to the polls.”
This is actually the kind of compromise I argued for at the end of The Voting Wars (but on a national scale).