Automatic voter registration a good idea

Perhaps we have been going about this the wrong way. Like a number of other states, Wisconsin has been working to make it harder for people to vote. The state’s new Voter ID law requires people to show a proper form of identification before casting a ballot. As expected, that has led to some would-be voters being turned away on election day, or skipping voting altogether because it is too difficult for them to comply with the law. In the most recent presidential election, turnout was the lowest for any presidential election in the state since 2000. And it has been determined by a study at UW-Madison that the state’s Voter ID law turned away nearly 17,000 registered voters. But instead of making people jump through hoops to vote, why don’t we make it easier? I presume we can all agree that everyone who is eligible should be allowed to vote in our elections, and that every vote should count as much as the next. That’s why a bill being proposed by lawmakers in Madison makes sense. It would automatically register eligible people to vote. The plan would combine the state’s DMV database with that of the state elections commission. Get a driver’s license, and you are automatically registered to vote. Lawmakers approved such a law in Oregon, and voter registration rolls swelled by 225,000 people. If we truly want people to be able to vote, this should be adopted in Wisconsin as well.