H.R.1, the For The People Act, is Democrats’ pro-democracy bill (thank you @RepSarbanes)--is chock full of excellent reforms. In thisI’ll look at the academic research on provisions and call out item that’s conspicuously absent:

Let’s start with a big one: Election Day registration. If you’ve ever procrastinated (and don’t tell me you haven’t!) it’s obvious why having registration deadlines before Election Day is straight up voter suppression. Google searches prove it https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/03/26/google-searches-show-that-millions-of-people-wanted-to-vote-but-couldnt/

Wisconsin rolled out Election Day registration in the 70s by municipality, and @JacobNeiheisel & @bcburden used that natural experiment to estimate (fairly precisely) a boost in turnout of ~3pp. That jump is consistent with more recent estimates as well https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wqWE05jCGcsHjBlX4uwTAQkCpZy_7zIt

Another major change is requiring states to automatically register citizens who interact with state agencies. @SeanMcElwee, @b_schaffner & Jesse Rhodes study Oregon--the 1st state to adopt AVRand find it increased turnout by 2-3pp. Makes the electorate more representative to!

Photo ID requirements suck and disenfranchise would-be voters. Quantifying is tough, but @justingrimmer & @jesselyoder use administrative records to analyze a new photo ID law' adoption in NC in '16. About 1-2% of citizens who lack ID are blocked from voting because

With early voting the drafters of HR1 did something really smart--they included weekends in the early voting mandate! After all, if your job/life inhibits finding time to vote on a Tuesday then likely M-F 9am-5pm early voting isn’t going to do a whole lot of good.

Voting on the Sunday before the election (“Souls to the polls”) is especially helpful at boosting turnout. (Most likely -- anyone know of papers on that specifically?)

Overall, research supports the weekend hypothesis, finding that states that include weekend voting have about 1-2pp higher turnout than comparable states w/o early voting or w/ weekday-only EV. Paper by @electionsmith, @enrijetashino, and @ElectProject https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uhvb9-cZYDeCrj4EBCqhawaRrSwvbn9x/view

HR1 mandates that states allow 16 and 17 year olds pre-register. Hillygus and @JohnHolbein1 have a great paper that shows that the effects of pre-registering even outweigh the habitual effect of voting, and increase youth voting by 3 percentage points. https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/07/Preregistration-10.22.14.pdf

This cool graph shows, surprisingly!, that 21yos who were *just* too young to vote in '08, out-mobilized their 22yo counterpart, likely because the 21yos were able to pre-register during the heat of the ‘08 campaign. Perhaps the paper's title could've been “The kids have #FOMO”

So what’s missing? Fixing the Electoral College! It’s wildly biased against Democrats right now, and will likely be for several elections https://twitter.com/davidshor/status/1348305282502418432

States with populations worth about 200 EVs have already joined the National Pop Vote Compact (VA is likely to join soon). If they reach 270 EVs (a tough climb, but possible), the winner of the popular vote will automatically get enough EVs and win. 1 person, 1 vote--imagine that

But, the constitution requires states to get the “consent of Congress” before entering into an interstate compact. While technically, it might not be needed in this case, given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, I think it’s wise. (And @NatlPopularVote agrees.)

Overall, H.R.1 is amazing. It makes me proud to be a Democrat. I hope the Dem leadership can figure out a way to pass it through the 51-50 Senate. Possibly by eliminating the filibuster; possibly by attaching monetary incentives to all of these provisions.

A provision that says “We’ll give extra electoral funds for every state that joins the national popular vote interstate compact” might be a way to consent to the compact while staying within the bounds of the Byrd rule. (Though experts would know better.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)#Byrd_Rule

Huge tip of the hat to @hill_charlotte for breaking all this down for me in her excellent thread. I couldn’t/wouldn’t have create the above research-related thread without her https://twitter.com/hill_charlotte/status/1349398704562728960

Finally, caveat: while these studies prove the reforms increase turnout, that doesn’t necessarily mean Ds will win more elections. In fact, in some cases (esp low-education white areas), Rs might benefit from these new rules. But...

....I’m for most anything that gives more people the right to vote for their representatives in government. So next stop: DC & PR & island statehood!