Photo by Adam Gerard.

Today, the D.C. Council’s Committee on the Judiciary unanimously voted to move forward a bill that automatically registers residents to vote through the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“I introduced this bill to reduce obstacles to voter registration and increase participation in our elections,” said Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen in a release this afternoon. The legislation moves next to a full council vote.

Here’s how it would work: When residents go to the DMV to obtain IDs, they would also register to vote, including choosing a party affiliation (which matters because D.C. still has a closed primary system). The D.C. Board of Elections would receive the information from the DMV and add it to the voter rolls. Voting isn’t mandatory; it just switches the registration system from opt-in to opt-out.

If D.C. passes the law, it will join Oregon, California, Connecticut, Vermont, and West Virginia. State legislatures in Illinois and New Jersey also passed automatic voter registration laws, but governors in those states vetoed them.

In the 2014 general election, 38.45 percent of registered D.C. voters participated, as compared to 36.4 percent of eligible voters nationwide.

The Automatic Voter Registration Amendment Act was introduced in May 2015 by Allen, Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, At-large Councilmembers Elissa Silverman and Anita Bonds, and former At-large Councilmember Vincent Orange, and co-sponsored by At-large Councilmember David Grosso.

Automatic voter registration is also part of the platform that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton laid out in an opinion piece that Washingtonians might find more memorable for her promise that “as president, I will be a vocal champion for D.C. statehood.”

Among those ideas, D.C. already has same-day voter registration and change of address, so long as you provide proof of residence, as well as the ability to vote absentee without stating a reason.

Allen has other plans to get more people to the polls—he introduced a law last November that would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in both local and federal elections. Two Maryland jurisdictions—Takoma Park, followed by Hyattsville—lowered the voting age in local elections to 16.