UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
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Stupid question, but do you have to register in advance to be able to vote? Why is that? In Germany, every citizen eligible to vote gets the necessary documents automatically by mail.
Worth noting things like jury service are selected from the electoral register. So you are basically opting in to democratic society.
I guess the government would also need to collect citizen data unnecessarily without consent in order to be automatically opted in. The UK is actually kind of libertarian in some aspects in autonomy around identity and right to be known to the government, etc. Although it would be basically impossible to actually function in the society and not be on some form of system, you could probably exist without anything more than your birth being registered.
I've noticed that too. My uncle forgot about all of it in his twenties and heard nothing more until he was contacted about claiming his state pension a few years ago. It's not all bad I guess.
You can kind of have your cake and eat it though. If you just ask HR to provide a letter saying they need you at work, so you need to be excused from jury duty. I've done that like 4 times over 3 workplaces.
Edit: then the other cheat code is asking the assessor if "jury nullification" exists in the UK
You do. I don't know why, really. Sounds like the German system is better!
It used to be automatic, but the Tories changed it. Probably to stop too many students voting for somebody else.
Usually it's one of those things you do when your move house. Every now and again they will send a form to confirm the entries are correct and if nothing has changed you just tick there box and send it back (or reply online). People who move a lot or bounce between two addresses (e.g. students) are usually the ones that drop through the cracks.
Oh so it's basically the same as in Germany, only here you are required to register if you move and it's not called voter registration. Thanks!
In Germany you have 'meldepflicht', but there is no law requiring you to register in the UK.
Oh I hadn't considered that, thanks!