Congress could set minimum standards for each state — requiring automatic voter registration, for example. I realize that most congressional Republicans now have little interest in voting rights. But I’d urge them to consider their party’s long-term interests: Opposing basic rights for large and growing groups is not so smart.
If Congress won’t act, the Supreme Court can. The court can acknowledge that its 2013 dismantling of a key part of the Voting Rights Act hinged on an overly rosy view of the aftermath. The Equal Protection Clause offers one solution, as the scholar Richard Hasen has argued: The justices could interpret it to overturn state laws making it harder to register and vote.
The Enlightenment ideas of our country’s founding have turned out to be pretty wise ones. Governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed,” as the Declaration of Independence says, and all Americans have “certain unalienable rights.” Voting, surely, is one of them.