Edit/Update: It turns out that my last name has a capitol letter in the middle and they put a space in it. Thank god. I can actually vote this year.
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As a European, the whole registering to vote thing is honestly one of the wildest parts of the US elections to me. It’s so unnecessary complicated and prone to errors/manipulation. I just have to show up with my ID, doesn’t matter if it’s for the EU parliament or the local city senate.
It’s by design. We could make it easier, but certain groups benefit from making it difficult.
It’s wild.
There are some local and state governments trying to pass automatic voter registration, but it’s an uphill battle, not unlike most things that would generally benefit the public good in this country.
Even in California, we got automatic voter registration passed the legislature, only for the governor to veto it.
Just wild that something so fundamental to a functioning democracy is so divisive.
So… I’m in Texas , been here a long time.
most ballot counts in the primaries and general are counted by secret software and hardware run by ultra conservative families the last 20 plus years. Recounts are not allowed and exit polls not used anymore because of unpredictability.
Nobody cares, no political party wants to change : not a topic in forums anywhere, even in conspiracy minded chat rooms, and it’s been this way forever ( since before 2000).
There is a ton of crazy that is ignored .
I’ve seen how the system works, I’ve been at the county chair level. Nobody will criticize it . There is a quiet culture of people knowing it’s invalid but decide to leave it be.
It’s overblown. It’s mostly propaganda.
I just have to show up with my ID
My ID is good for 5 years, and I am required to update it within 60 days of changing residences. Every time I’ve renewed or updated it, they have asked me if I wanted to register or update my voter registration. My registration is updated every time I vote, and I don’t get de-registered unless I skip voting for about a decade straight, without re-registering when I renew my ID card.
ALL of the problems with voter registration are about people who either can’t or won’t get or renew their ID card. Every time you read about voter registration issues in the US, you should imagine going to your polling station without a current ID card.
That’s called privilege. You literally don’t realize what a burden it is for some people to comply with voter registration requirements, because your life is such that it’s easy for you.
I could try and explain it, but in my experience every example I give, you’ll take out of context and come up with a simple fix. Because you aren’t able to understand the cumulative effect of thousands of these examples all happening all the time. You’ll just pick each one, imagine it happening to you in your life once, and think “oh that’s not a big deal I could handle that”. But it’s death by a thousand cuts. “That” is not a one time aberration. Your whole life is nothing but “that”.
You just have to believe those of us more experienced in that kind of hardship than you.
Or, alternatively, believe the Republicans who have been caught on a hot mic saying that they implent voter ID laws specifically to suppress Dem votes.
That’s called privilege. You literally don’t realize what a burden it is for some people to comply with voter registration requirements, because your life is such that it’s easy for you.
The “privilege” you are talking about is the exact same privilege the parent comment assumed:
I just have to show up with my ID, doesn’t matter if it’s for the EU parliament or the local city senate.
The “privilege” you are talking about is “having an ID card”. Every time you obtain, renew, replace, update, or otherwise contact the state bureau handling ID cards (usually, the DMV), they are required, under federal law, to update your voter registration unless you specifically decline.
The European standard is “get an ID card, show up and vote”. We implemented the European standard back in 1993.
Proving my point here. Yes, that’s privilege. It seems like normal to you, as all privilege does. But it’s very difficult for a lot of people.
But it’s very difficult for a lot of people.
It is, indeed, but the proper solution here is to lift them up to the bar, not lower the bar down to them.
Lack of ID prevents you from getting and keeping a job, attending school, accessing the banking system, getting a PO box, getting licenses. Being unable to vote is the least of your problems.
The proper solution is not to figure out how to make voting accessible to those without an ID. The proper solution is to get them an ID.
Nope. Voting is a fundamental right of a citizen. An illiterate dude living in a cave who has never even seen a concrete building should have the right to vote, if he’s a citizen. It is a civic responsibility for us to lower the bar for voting as low as possible to disenfranchise as few people as possible.
All those things you said about IDs are true, and yes we should be helping people get them. But in the mean time we must not disenfranchise them.
Hmm they did say “can’t” suggesting they acknowledge some folks have things blocking them
Yes, there are people who can’t obtain an ID card, for whatever reason. A European citizen who couldn’t obtain an ID card would have the exact same problems voting that an American citizen does. I don’t have a systemic solution for that. This would seem to be something that would need to be handled on a case-by-case basis, possibly involving the judicial system and a court order. It also doesn’t seem to be a particularly common problem. I’d bet all the money in my pockets that OP does, indeed, have some sort of ID card.
We have a remedy for this: Provisional ballots. Cast your vote now, and resolve any clusterfuck with registration later.
You don’t need an ID in Germany to vote just, push comes to shove, a way to make your identity believable. Expired ID, student ID, personalised public transport ticket, perfectly sufficient. Generally you just vote with your election notification, a sheet of paper with your address, ballot location, and number in the voter registry on it. If you try to vote with an ID but without notification workers are going to roll their eyes because they’ll have to manually search for you in their lists, heck, you might’ve turned up at the wrong location.
“I’ve had no issues, therefore issues don’t exist”
What I’m describing has been federal law for over 30 years. The European criticism about ID cards is nonsensical. Every time you obtain, renew, or amend your drivers license or ID, you update your voter registration.
Remember the context of my comment: I am replying to European criticism of registration. The European approach is for everyone to obtain a government issued ID card and present it at the polling station. The NVRA already does this. We have already adopted the European solution to this problem.
I don’t need my ID to vote, also it’s valid for 10 years. Municipalities fill the voting registry from their citizens’ registry, then send out notifications to everyone. You literally cannot miss an election. You generally go voting with that notification, it’s sufficient, or use it to request a mail-in ballot.
I’m sure administration is sufficiently different in the US than it is in Germany for the thing to not be able to work like that, but, big picture: The IRS can find everyone. Have them fill the registry, then.
Except, the whole point of this thread is an example of that not being the case.
Yeah but we have voter id. And for some reason Americans think it is unreasonable to have to have a government issued ID as this would disenfranchise all the people that don’t have an ID… Which I think is also weird. Just make IDs accessible to citizens at low costs and implement voterID across the board.
A certain political party benefits from low voter turnout. Which, coincidentally, also happens to be the party working to get Trump elected and shield him from the repercussions of his crimes.
Yeah. It’s also not as if doing this now will be reasonable. It will be something that needs to be put into law including the affordable national ID and then worked towards over the course of a decade or something.
They could just make a government ID that is not mandatory. Much like a passport. And whoever holds a passport or a voluntary govt ID is automatically enabled to vote using their ID / passport, but then would still leave the choice of manually registering for voting for those who don’t trust “the government” and don’t want a govt ID
Why? The whole “illegals are voting” will be dead in the water. And requiring someone to be able to ID themselves using a government issued and official ID when performing stuff like voting is not weird. The whole convoluted show up with birth certificate yadda yadda is.
Yeah that’s pretty much what I meant, sorry if I wasn’t clear.
I just think in order to reduce the resistance against such a change, it might be good to still provide the “old” method with voter registration for anyone who doesn’t want a government ID because of “muh freedoms”.
That way, any normal citizen can just have a government ID and by identifying themselves be able to vote without further registration. Any citizen who doesn’t want an ID can go through a voter registration process, same as today.
Imagine you moved countries, and were entitled to vote in both.
You have to tell the new country you exist there.
That’s the most common failure mode in the US, when you move states or even counties and there’s a miscommunication or lack of communication between where you came from and where you are. There is no top level federal voter database.
There are other issues, but this is the most common.
You don’t vote at a federal level, you vote at a state level, for federal stuff. (And state/local stuff)
As a European, the whole registering to vote thing is honestly one of the wildest parts of the US elections to me. It’s so unnecessary complicated and prone to errors/manipulation. I just have to show up with my ID, doesn’t matter if it’s for the EU parliament or the local city senate.
I see comments like this a lot. Most important and apparently most difficult for Europeans (and others but it’s almost always Europeans) to understand is that the US is a very large country, made up of 50 semi-independent states, each with its own government and laws-- about many things, not just elections. So that’s why things are more complex here–we’re not a small monolithic nation with one single, centralized government and set of laws that apply to everyone no matter where in the country they live.
Each US State runs its own elections; a person obviously can’t be allowed to vote in more than one state. Since people can move from one state to another at any time, and even have residences in more than one state at the same time (such as college students and well-off people), it’s necessary to register with the state you will be voting in, so that you are officially able to vote in that state and no other.
update response to the replies: Funny, the replies to this post comparing the situation to that of their country with the EU is basically the relationship I was trying to explain, yet they think they have somehow refuted what I said, when actually they validated what I said. Here’s what’s really “wild”: First you call our system stupid, then when I explain our system to you, you say, “But that’s just like our system!” and then downvote me for making you realize that what you called stupid is what you also have. 😄
Read the original comment condescendingly asking “Why do you have to register to vote?” yet they are also registered to vote in their own country, but don’t even realize it because it was done automatically for them as a citizen. Your government has to track who is eligible to vote[1] and therefore in EU elections as well, one way or another, even if you don’t use the word “registered” for it.
BTW, Many US States also automatically register their residents to vote (though a person can optionally refuse that); other US states expect you to register for it yourself (perhaps some European countries too?). Each state makes its own laws about that. Once registered in a state, we can also vote in our Federal elections, just like you can vote in EU elections.
[1] Example: Germany voter eligibility:
Generally, to be allowed to vote in Germany, you need to be a German citizen who is at least 18 years old. You must also have been officially registered in the place where you’re voting, such as Berlin, for at least three months, and you must not be excluded from voting for other reasons (for example, if a court took away your right to vote because you were deemed legally incapable of making your own decisions).
You do realize some countries in Europe have federal governments (Germany for example), right? And then these completely independent countries are part of the EU which have EU elections. So you have federation within federation. Also, the EU has higher population than the USA. We don’t even all speak the same language. We are allowed to move between EU countries whenever we like and have residence where we please.
I think its not Europeans that don’t understand.
update: In case it is not clear, being registered automatically is the same as not having to register, which is what the post is about. Idk what that update word salad is supposed to be or why it is an update instead of a reply.
Wait, Europe isn’t just France, Germany and the UK?
If you weren’t so broke, you would know there is also Switzerland. ;)
Switzerland isn’t a part of Germany???
Oof. I checked mine three times this cycle to be sure. Never know when some awful mistake, like voting in a Democratic primary, will get your TX Voter info deleted.
You know, though, since we’re mostly left-leaning around these parts, just tell me the secret code and I’ll meet you at a basement in the People’s Republic of Austin and we’ll discuss getting three non-citizens to vote however you’d like, and then we can dine on the flesh of Christians to celebrate!
How are you guys looking on adrenochrome down that way? Supply shortages have hit us hard on the east coast. I’d kill for some fresh, virginal blood right about now.
I’d kill for some fresh, virginal blood right about now.
ISWYDT. Congratulations to you for your dark cleverness, fellow leftist devil!
Unfortunately, it’s not much better here. The annoyingly heroic Governor Abbott has heroically deployed the heroic Texas Military Department and is disrupting our usual channels along the Rio Grande, both for commodity Catholics, and for nefarious agents to procure high-end evangelical targets in Sugar Land and Southlake. On the plus side, the lack of fresh victims is stressing our natural rivals the Chupacabras, so once we stuff the ballot box and then eliminate all those who stand in our way, Stanley in logistics says things will be back to normal fairly soon, as the extraction facilities in the Planned Parenthood clinics have not yet been seized. Remember to keep an eye out for the distribution points marked out with the “Y’all means All” Pride flags!
That’s it, it hurricaneing time texas
Voter suppression go brrrrrr
by the way if you vote by mailing it in, in Florida your vote could be denied without you even knowing.
They verify the signatures and a lot of recent young adults never really had a proper signature, it also happens that a lot of youth vote blue.
Invalidating a vote based on signature analysis sounds like a recipe for a MASSIVE probe into election integrity.
Won’t matter if it pushes it past Jan 6th and the vote isn’t certified.
Also wont matter with the supreme court sitting at 2/3rds fascist
Edit/Update: It turns out that my last name has a capitol letter in the middle and they put a space in it. Thank god. I can actually vote this year.
17.5: People’s names aren’t written in camelCase
Alexander De Large?
Something like that, except it’d be DeLarge and it’s in the system with a space and apparently case-insensitive
Not a Texan, but here in Missouri, you can request your absentee ballot as early as 9/24 this year.
I requested mine, waited two weeks, and it never arrived. So last week I requested another, and I’m waiting for it. I do think there’s some fuckery afoot with the mail, so I’m probably going to be stuck voting absentee in-person at my local election board.
Mail-in voting isn’t allowed for most Texans. There are only a few very specific exceptions.
One of those exceptions is to be 65 years or older. Guess who that disproportionately benefits?
That’s shitty. I’m sorry to hear it.
It’s just one of the many voter suppression tactics used in Texas.
Made me go check mine and I don’t live in texas.
I’m going through the same shit in Indiana. Waiting on a response grim my local office.
Grim indeed.
Ha, didn’t notice that typo.
That doesn’t look like the site specifically for TX. Not sure if there might be something that could cause another site to report an error.
Double check at
You’ll need to enter your TDL (Texas Driver’s License Number) and date of birth after clicking the “Am I Registered?” button
Yep, not found
I was hoping you’d be able to find it.
Maybe you can contact your county registrar and see what happened. The deadline for voter registration for the presidential election was October 7. Maybe there’s something that can be done.
That’s fucking dumb. I hope you’re able to rectify it. Sorry you have to deal with that shit.
Online voting what could go wrong
Please. Please tell me no one is actually considering online voting. There’s no way to maintain anonymity and vote integrity.
@thefartographer@lemm.ee Have you checked yours? Mine is all good.
Yup! Mine and every voting age member of my family in San Antonio! Thanks for checking
Apparently there are more Texans around than we initially thought.
Is that a good thing? Should there really be more of us?
I have made no claims as to the goodness or badness of the situation. I’m just observing.
But no matter how many Texans show up there’s no replacement for us.
we hrd u lik fredum so we freed u frm votg
hell mine is in “suspense” because “the registrar is unsure of my residential address”. been here for nearly 4 years and my DL is up to date for 3.5 of them. looked up my info and they still have me in the old county rolls. can i vote in the old county while actually living in the new one?
