No state currently has such inclusive registration, although Oregon came closest in March when it passed a law automatically registering eligible citizens with a driver’s license — instantly adding 300,000 voters to the rolls. Since then, 14 states have considered similar proposals to put the burden of registration on the government, where it belongs, and not on individuals.

Mrs. Clinton also called for at least 20 days of early voting nationwide, including evenings and weekends. This is a proven way of reducing long lines on Election Day and making voting possible for people whose work or other commitments prevent them from getting to the polls during regular business hours. More than one-third of all votes in the 2012 election were cast early — and yet 14 states still do not offer it, and crucial swing states like Ohio and Florida have actually cut it back.

Finally, Mrs. Clinton pushed to repeal punitive state laws that ban people with criminal records from voting, sometimes for life — a population that approaches six million nationwide.

These are hardly new issues for the country, and the Republican Party as it now is constituted in Congress is not going to enact the laws to expand voter registration. Still, it is very encouraging to see Mrs. Clinton championing this central democratic principle so early in the campaign. President Obama said very little on voting rights until deep into his second term, even after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, freeing up Republican-dominated state governments to enact dozens of new voting restrictions that previously would have been blocked by federal law.

Voter ID laws have been a particular favorite, even though their backers know full well that impersonation fraud is essentially nonexistent. In her speech Mrs. Clinton rebuked Republican presidential contenders who have signed such laws — including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Rick Perry, former governor of Texas. She called on Republicans “at all levels of government, with all manner of ambition, to stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud.”