this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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Registering to vote is a weird American thing that needs to go away.
Thing is, the government doesn't know where you are. You get a social security number when you're born, and the hospital provides a birth certificate, and everything else is voluntary. You can get a driver's license, establish credit with a bank, but if you just leave your house and go to some other state, you don't really have to tell anyone.
Living in one place entitles you to vote for local politicians, and registering to vote prevents you from voting more than once.
This is only true if you exclusively work under the table or commit tax fraud, otherwise you inform the government where you live and work every year when filing your taxes. They may not know if you move between tax seasons, but they’ll know eventually.
There are a lot of people who vote but don't pay taxes for one reason or another.
you're right. if i don't make enough income to need to file taxes, i shouldn't be allowed to vote
The federal government isn't in charge of elections, your state and county are. There is zero reason that you shouldn't automatically be registered to vote whenever you get a driver's license or register for any sort of ID
that's uhhh....my point? sort of. the constitution requires no ID. and in general no federal, state, county, or municipal authority provides ID. which makes any requirements unconstitutional.
Passport?
He meant automatically issued id. You can ask for various forms of identification documents, but you arent given one just for living somewhere.
That's very nice, sir, but I still need to see your passport
crosses arms very sternly
I understand that. Buts it’s a weird American aberration born out of your worrying frontier fetishism. Having a functioning central public administration would solve *a lot * of your problems.
Y’all need records, yo.
Or just be less paranoid. You have to register to vote in Canada, but you can do it automatically when filing your taxes, or at the polls with your government ID, OR at the polls with a piece of mail and an already registered voter to vouch for you. They just write your name and address down to forward to the federal or provincial elections agency, nave your voucher sign a form, and then give you a ballot.
Yeah but this Canadian method absolutely reeks of wanting people to vote.
But muh state's rights!
A centralized one that makes it easy to update would be awesome, but would require a constitutional amendment since it is currently up to each individual state.