Do we really want to make elections better?

I remain a pessimist about this. To the extent that states want to make it easy for everyone to vote and are willing to devote the resources to achieve that, it’s great that they’ll now have a path to do so (see Heather Gerken’s optimistic take for how this could work). But I just don’t see “make it easy for everyone to vote” as a goal that most, or even many, states share.

I hope I’m wrong! To the extent that the problem is mainly one of information not previously available to well-intentioned, non-partisan election administrators, then Bauer-Ginsburg could certainly make a big difference. But to the extent the problem is one of partisan state governments who want to maintain high hurdles between (at least some) people and the franchise — or to the extent that money is needed to implement change and election administration remains a low priority — then change will be minimal.

Still, I strongly agree with Hasen that the people involved were excellent. And even modest improvements would be welcome. I just don’t see much hope for significant progress given the partisan environment. Voting should be easy for everyone. There are reasons it’s not.