ELI5 why do people in USA need to register to vote?
ELI5 why do people in USA need to register to vote?
I'd expect the state to have a list of all its citizens and their basic personal info (age) which could be used to determine their eligibility for voting. In my country, we get a "invitation" to the vote, with your voter station and info on how to change it.
Instead, I'm seeing posts about USA's "voter rolls", which are sometimes purged, which prevents people from voting. Isn't this an attack on the voting system and democracy itself?
So why doesn't USA have a list of voters? Are they stupid?
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Lot of dumb comments here. Everyone in a country with voting registers to vote, you just may not realize it. In order to vote in an election, the government needs to know that 1) you are a citizen, 2) you are alive, and 3) where you live so they know you can vote in that local district.
Ask yourself, if you moved across your country, how would you vote in those local elections? The answer is that you would register to vote there. You may not see it that way, cause that "registration" may be dual purposed with some other act (like getting a new drivers license), but you are letting the government know you can vote there. Most places in the US (at least everywhere I've lived, I think) allowed me to register to vote when I got my new ID.
The thing that makes it a little different in the US is that registering to vote isn't strictly tied to anything else. If you move from one city to another within the same state, or if you choose not to get a new drivers license in a new state, the government will have no clue where you live. You aren't required to give the government that information. The only time you have to give the government an address is to file taxes (maybe not even then). That doesn't occur until spring, so if you move in the summer, there's no way for the government to know that you can vote in a different place if you don't tell them.
Canadian here.
if you moved across your country, how would you vote in those local elections?
I would literally just show up to the polls on election day and show a piece of ID and something (utility bill, etc) with my new address and tell them I want to vote. Or I would bring a friend and they would sign a statement affirming I'm who I say I am.
You may not see it that way, cause that "registration" may be dual purposed with some other act (like getting a new drivers license)
This is the problem, the list of citizens, and list of registered voters should not be two completely separate lists. You should be able to vote no matter what if you are a citizen
There is no "list of citizens", though. Well, there are things like social security, but they aren't tied to where you live the way that voting has to be.
I would literally just show up to the polls on election day and show a piece of ID and something (utility bill, etc) with my new address and tell them I want to vote.
This is broadly how it works here, it's just that most states don't want to do it same-day since that bogs down the lines on election day.
My point is that "registering to vote" just means proving that you can vote, and no matter where you live, you have to do that somehow.
There is no “list of citizens”, though. Well, there are things like social security, but they aren’t tied to where you live the way that voting has to be.
There is no need to have it tied to where you live though, which is the point. Every other democracy in the world is content to verify a) citizenship and b) proof of address independently, but it's just the states where you need to register ahead of time to a 3rd list specific for voting and remain vigilant that you haven't been purged off that list come election day
it’s just that most states don’t want to do it same-day since that bogs down the lines on election day
It literally doesn't though. 95% of the people at every poll station are known ahead of time because they still live at the same address they last procured government services from - they can move through the line at the speed it takes to verify their name and cross it off the list. Each station has a separate line for day-of voters, and it takes 2-3 minutes to get set up at most (I've done it at least a half dozen times)
My point is that “registering to vote” just means proving that you can vote, and no matter where you live, you have to do that somehow
This isn't disputed, the OPs question above is why it needs to be explicitly done as a separate step in the states. It's the only place in the world where stopping 2-3 ineligible voters from casting a ballot seemingly takes a greater priority than allowing dozens of eligible american citizens from participating in democracy
It's not usually explicitly done as a separate step in the States. When most people move, they just check a box to register to vote when they are getting their new ID.
The reason that it can be a separate step is that there's nothing requiring you to have an ID if you don't want to have one, and the people most likely to not have an ID are poor/homeless/otherwise disadvantaged. That's when you need to explicitly provide your local election people with some kind of proof of identification and proof of address.
you left out that registration is also a way to keep black and Hispanic people from voting by imposing "rules and requirements". been that way in the US for a LONG time unfortunately.
Are you saying that Black and Hellospanic people don't follow rules and requirements? That sounds rather like a generalization to me
The goal is to disenfranchise black and hispanic voters by putting up barriers that are difficult for them to get past. Typically something like requiring photo ID to vote, and also making it so that getting that ID can only be done during hours where most people work means that the poor can't afford to take time off work to get them. This disproportionately affects black and hispanic people.
So it's not that they don't follow rules, it's that the rules are aimed at being hard for them to follow.
I totally get it, I hate following hard rules too. If we believe the system is stacked against us, why don't we just assume the whole thing is racist? Then we can just send one guy to get the driver's license, and we can pass off his photo as all of us!
Not really. Where I'm from(Eastern Europe) as long as you're of legal age and have a valid ID, you can vote, you don't need to register anywhere. Now, for local (mayor, city council, etc) and parliamentary elections you can vote only in the district to which you belong, as per the home address you have in your ID. For presidential an European parliamentary elections, you can vote ANYWHERE. So no one registers anywhere.
So, changing the address on your ID serves as a change of registration. Which is what he said and exactly how it works where I am in the US.
I’m not sure how that would work: is your vote tied to your identity?
Having a registration of all legal voters allows you to verify people only vote once, only legitimate votes are counted, and your vote can be anonymous.
No one knows who I voted for (except probably all of Lemmy, lmao), but on my way in I verified who I am, and they checked off that I was listed as a voter, and checked me off as having voted.
There is a check via an ID scanner before going into the voting booth that ensures you've only voted once. No one know who I voted for either. The only downside to this is that if you haven't updated your ID when changing address, you would have to go to the district on your ID to vote. This somehow makes sense since for parliamentary elections, for example, you have different candidates for different districts.
In cases like that for us, I think there’s some sort of provisional voting where you cast your ballot but it’s not counted until everything checks out. In your example, perhaps they’d confirm you moved and make sure you only voted in the one location. It’s not something they can do immediately though. However I’ve never had reason to find out the details on this so I may be a bit off base
It sounds like you are from a country that requires you to have an ID. So effectively, you are required to register to vote by getting an ID. In the US, you are not required to have an ID, so the government has no way of knowing your home address by default.