As Democrats count down the days until they take the speaker's gavel for the first time in eight years, they are wasting no time getting down to the business of legislating. According to NPR, the House's first vote in the 116th Congress will be on an omnibus bill that overturns Citizens United, depoliticizes the redistricting process, and closes loopholes in government ethics law—ones that happen to accrue to the untold benefit of a certain President of the United States.

The bill would also implement automatic voter registration—a policy already in place in 14 states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures—on a nationwide basis. That isn't the reform proposal that Republicans are most afraid of; that would probably be the anti-gerrymandering provision, which is a direct threat to one of the GOP's primary tools for retaining political power. But AVR, if enacted, might have the greatest long-term impact on how American democracy works.

What is automatic voter registration?

A pretty simple concept, actually: A federal law in place since the Clinton administration requires state agencies—so, departments of motor vehicles, primarily—to provide residents with the "opt-in" opportunity to register to vote when filling out paperwork. Usually, this takes the form of a little box on your application to renew a driver license. By checking it, you authorize the agency to update your voter registration information, or, if you're new to the state, to enter your name into the rolls. If you don't check it, you remain registered at your old address, or, if you're new to the state, not at all.

"Automatic voter registration" means switching to an opt-out structure; by default, everyone who interacts with a state agency is automatically registered to vote, unless you check the little box, which directs state employees not to update your information. Most AVR schemes also do away with paperwork, and instead instruct agencies to electronically submit information to the relevant election officials.

What isn't automatic voter registration?

"Mandatory" voter registration. AVR does not force anyone to vote, or require anyone to register to vote, or disclose anyone's personal information to state officials without their consent. It simply streamlines the registration process, and makes it a little more likely that a few more people are eligible to participate in elections by the time the next one rolls around.

What are the arguments in favor of AVR?

Look at the headlines—they're all right there. In Georgia, the office of secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp placed registration holds on tens of thousands of applications over minor discrepancies in things like spelling and hyphenation, and has purged some 1.4 million voters from the rolls since 2012, citing to "maintenance." In Texas, a set of archaic and arcane rules makes it functionally impossible to conduct large-scale registration drives. Some states require prospective voters to register a month before Election Day, which means that constituents who don't carefully plan out their participation in the democratic process effectively waive their right to do so. AVR would reduce the burdens imposed by obstacles like these, and make it more likely that anyone who wants to cast a ballot can procure an "I Voted" sticker of their very own.

What are the arguments against AVR?

Let's see: In a 2016 Washington Times opinion piece, Robert Knight calls AVR an "act of a top-down, authoritarian government" that infringes on the free speech rights of those who would "express[] displeasure with the electoral process by not participating." Or, as Jeff Jacoby put it in a Boston Globe column titled "The arrogance of automatic voter registration" earlier this year: