Same-day voter registration, even more than vote harvesting, confers an advantage to the campaign and the party that has the biggest GOTV operation. Imagine the scene at UC Merced during election week in a congressional district where GOP incumbent John Duarte trailed as of November 2 by a whopping 231 votes. Imagine professional Democrat Party vote gatherers fanning out across campus, targeting students enrolled in majors with an emphasis on sociology, gender, race, and racial justice. Imagine their pitch: “We have to stop Trump,” “We have to protect abortion rights,” “We have to fight race and gender discrimination.”
And voila, another registrant, another voter, another ballot, and Duarte, that GOP racist, has to earn one more vote somewhere else to keep up. Same-day voting, legal in California, must have favored Democrats. It will be a while before we know the party registration statistics on the more than 371,840 people who registered and voted at the last minute in California. But even if Republicans had the operation to execute same-day voter outreach, where would they go? Their potential voters are dispersed and busy working, whereas the Democrats need only go to college campuses. When you’re looking for 231 votes in a battleground district, the margin of victory can be found in front of lecture halls.
Imagine that...
