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It seems to me that this could be accomplished without compelling states to do anything - create a federal database, assign federal IDs, allow states to participate on a voluntary basis. I would certainly advocate that my state sign up for it, and by participating in such a system, you could increase confidence that your state isn't getting illegitimate voters.
I am vigorously against compulsory voting because I think the marginal non-voter is (to be blunt) an absolute moron. I would generally prefer driving down participation in any way that doesn't seem likely to cause social upheaval. Of course, at some point we're bumping into the more basic question of what the point of democracy is in the first place, but none of the answers that I come up with make true universal voting sound appealing to me.
Morons are citizens too. Smart productive citizens can navigate whatever setup happens. Morons should have a say in making sure their society is set up for them. Democracy isn't about getting the best answers in my opinion. It's about getting the answers that work for the majority of your people. And those may be stupid and counterproductive. And that is ok.
I've heard an alternative take, which is: "Democracy is how we get different groups of people with widely-varying value systems to live in the same place without violent conflict." It's like, every N years, we have a mini civil war, except instead of actually shooting/stabbing/punching each other, we just line up everybody's troops on opposite sides of the battlefield, and whoever brings the biggest army wins, and we all agree to go home without bloodshed until the next regularly-scheduled civil war.
One can argue that there's no point in including people who are indifferent to politics in this process, because they're not the ones likely to start an actual war over anything.
On the other hand, one can argue that if we did make everybody show up, the issues being discussed would be more mainstream and less fringe. Wedge issues like trans rights, gun control, and abortion might be much less salient.
That definitely is another consideration, agreed. I think though that people's level of disengagement of politics can be a warning sign. They might not start a war, but they may very well opt out of the social contract entirely, if they feel they are not represented.
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