Registering for your right to vote sounds odd to me. In my country, anyone with a legal address is automatically invited to vote. If you do not have one or are expat, you can register yourself.
Now, in my neighboring country, Belgium, there's even a voting duty. And while not enforced, Belgians are by law required to come to a voting boot. They can abstain from the voting itself if they want to.
In my country, anyone with a legal address is automatically invited to vote.
Did you register your legal address? If not how will someone know how many people assigned to a given address? The primary key in your database needs to be controlled somehow.
The reality is voter registration happens in most countries. In some countries it's explicate (like Australia where you register your name and address with the AEC or risk a fine if you don't), and in some countries it's more indirect such as a country neighbouring Belgium where you have to register your name against your address with
If not how will someone know how many people assigned to a given address?
In my country (Spain), the government is also sending invites (actually, the ballots themselves) to all the citizens and you don't need to perform any action to vote. If you move to a different address, you would have to communicate it such that your records are updated. But, other than for elections and a few other things, there is no problem if your actual address doesn't match the one in the official records, mainly if both of them are in the same city. All this seems closely related to the way in which
Yes exactly. The address situation is secondary to having a list of eligible voters and ensuring that the correct number of votes are sent/counted. Correct addresses only really help determine which local area you vote for, on a national election there is considerable tolerance to error in such measures.
But critical is a list of people who are eligible to vote, and if you can do that via something everyone has (Personal ID, BSN, or whatever) then that's good. The problem comes in countries like the USA or A
Ah! OK. I misunderstood your statement as a voter registration being an almost forced requirement everywhere. My bad. In any case and by bearing in mind my absolute ignorance about the actual details, I still don't see the need to register to vote every time regardless of the specific citizen ID conditions. You could register just once, even by default at your birth or after the first relevant action you do (e.g., opening a bank account or buying/renting a house), and change that information if required. Even countries with no formal ID systems certainly have long-term records of all their citizens, and addresses and (not) wanting to vote are pretty important bits. It seems to me than more than actual intrinsic limitations of those systems, all this is mostly related to a cultural or historical different view of the citizens/government relationships: police state + mistrusted citizens obeying vs. welfare state + trusted citizens participating.
I still don't see the need to register to vote every time
It's not. In Australia you only register once when you're 18 and register again if your address changes. I believe in the USA it's the same but the USA is weird so I'm sure there's difference even within the USA:-)
Even countries with no formal ID systems certainly have long-term records of all their citizens
If one thing is true of any country, that's the tax department can find you even without formal ID systems:-D.
Even though I am not particularly interested in any of this, I had a free while now and decided to do a quick research just to fill all the knowledge voids in the last posts. You are right and, by default, voter registration happens just once in Australia and also in most of jurisdictions (e.g., states within the US), unless there are relevant changes in the situation of the given person. You can find a reasonably good overview in wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
In general, the aforementioned point seem
The one day you'd sell your soul for something, souls are a glut.
Those little differences. (Score:3, Interesting)
Registering for your right to vote sounds odd to me. In my country, anyone with a legal address is automatically invited to vote. If you do not have one or are expat, you can register yourself.
Now, in my neighboring country, Belgium, there's even a voting duty. And while not enforced, Belgians are by law required to come to a voting boot. They can abstain from the voting itself if they want to.
Re: (Score:2)
In my country, anyone with a legal address is automatically invited to vote.
Did you register your legal address? If not how will someone know how many people assigned to a given address? The primary key in your database needs to be controlled somehow.
The reality is voter registration happens in most countries. In some countries it's explicate (like Australia where you register your name and address with the AEC or risk a fine if you don't), and in some countries it's more indirect such as a country neighbouring Belgium where you have to register your name against your address with
Re: (Score:2)
If not how will someone know how many people assigned to a given address?
In my country (Spain), the government is also sending invites (actually, the ballots themselves) to all the citizens and you don't need to perform any action to vote. If you move to a different address, you would have to communicate it such that your records are updated. But, other than for elections and a few other things, there is no problem if your actual address doesn't match the one in the official records, mainly if both of them are in the same city. All this seems closely related to the way in which
Re: (Score:2)
Yes exactly. The address situation is secondary to having a list of eligible voters and ensuring that the correct number of votes are sent/counted. Correct addresses only really help determine which local area you vote for, on a national election there is considerable tolerance to error in such measures.
But critical is a list of people who are eligible to vote, and if you can do that via something everyone has (Personal ID, BSN, or whatever) then that's good. The problem comes in countries like the USA or A
Re:Those little differences. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
police state + mistrusted citizens obeying vs. welfare state + trusted citizens participating
And forgot to add: private companies vs. citizens' rights being the main rulers.
Re: (Score:2)
I still don't see the need to register to vote every time
It's not. In Australia you only register once when you're 18 and register again if your address changes. I believe in the USA it's the same but the USA is weird so I'm sure there's difference even within the USA :-)
Even countries with no formal ID systems certainly have long-term records of all their citizens
If one thing is true of any country, that's the tax department can find you even without formal ID systems :-D.
Re: (Score:2)
Even though I am not particularly interested in any of this, I had a free while now and decided to do a quick research just to fill all the knowledge voids in the last posts. You are right and, by default, voter registration happens just once in Australia and also in most of jurisdictions (e.g., states within the US), unless there are relevant changes in the situation of the given person. You can find a reasonably good overview in wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
In general, the aforementioned point seem