Sam Oliker-Friedland is the Executive Director of the Institute for Responsive Government and a former Department of Justice voting rights litigator at the Civil Rights Division. We discuss the promise of automation for good governance and democracy.

There is a lot of good pro-voter legislation being implemented in states from Nevada to Michigan, Pennsylvania to New York. The success of automatic voter registration laws are fertile ground for better public policy making and better governance across the board. Practical public policy is impact forward. It takes account of on the ground implementation and of the political reality in the states. And then it goes back to see if the policy did achieve the desired impact.