Why so many problems with registration and voting process?

[Uraniun235]

The reason we don't succeed at taxation is because the IRS is badly underfunded. Another couple hundred million dollars to the IRS could see returns of over TEN BILLION DOLLARS, but god forbid anyone suggests giving more funds to those bastards at the IRS. Oh no, they might actually make people pay their taxes! What a terrible catastrophe!


I'm afraid of a federal voting standard only because they'd probably replace our awesome system and replace it with piece-of-shit hackable electronic voting machines.

[RedImperator]

I wonder if there's any constitutional reason a state couldn't make voting mandatory. Because if an individual state decided to adopt the Australian system, the scaling problems don't exist; only California and Texas have more people than Australia, and only California has significantly more.

[Lusankya]

、
Yes we did, my dear, we both mentioned a rather significant bump in population and Greg mentioned population densities. Do you even attempt to digest these posts or do you just skim through them looking for buzzwords?

You haven't mentioned exactly WHAT issues would arise from scaling. The US population is 15x larger than Australia's. If there are any problems apart from "it will cost 15x more" (which I don't percieve to be a problem, for what I hope are obvious reasons), what are they?

Also, Australia's population is less dense than the US. Australia can get Kalgoorie registered to vote. It has 76,000 people and an area of 2.3 million square kilometres. Consider the logistics of that. It's larger than Alaska, with a lower population density. Many of the people there are temporary workers who are there for mining. Pray, tell, how is the population density of the US more difficult than that?


Uranium already addressed the issue with taxation.

[Dark Hellion]

I understand you are trying to make a point, and I will not disagree that U.S. voting can be run better, but it is surpassingly ignorant of basic logistics to pretend that 15 times the populace (especially the difference between 20 million and 300 million) is only going to make something cost 15 times as much. Simply think of the fact that it is more than 3 times harder to plan a party for 30 people than it is to plan one for 10. Now scale that up a few million times.

It is exceedingly difficult to scale damn near any program up even a couple of times, let alone over a dozen, and then factor in heavily entrenched political and social expectations. This is all besides the fact that you are still asking Ender to prove a negative.

[Lusankya]

It's not as though it couldn't be run at a state level, if you really think that running it at a national level is too hard. ]

And I'm not asking him to prove a negative. I'm asking him to say what difficulties he can foresee.

[Mayabird]

Part of the problem is that a good chunk of the country spent a century systematically trying to disfranchise as many people as they could (poor people, black people, especially poor black people). The system they have now is jury-rigged from the remains of the old, intentionally bad systems, and nobody will acknowledge it. It needs to all be thrown out and started over.

A good way to start is to emulate Oregon and Washington. We have mail-in ballots (although if people really, really want to, it seems they can go to the polls and vote on Election Day instead of doing it at home weeks ahead of time). No expensive broken touch screens or other nonsense.

[Uraniun235]

A good way to start is to emulate Oregon and Washington. We have mail-in ballots (although if people really, really want to, it seems they can go to the polls and vote on Election Day instead of doing it at home weeks ahead of time). No expensive broken touch screens or other nonsense.

Well, even then it's not like other states where they hand you the ballot at the polling place; you're basically just taking your ballot somewhere else to fill it in, somewhere which conveniently happens to have a drop box in the same room and where they've set up a little booth with curtains, for grumpy old men who write shitty editorials about how postal voting takes away some magical civic experience which everyone used to share.

[Aeolus]

I wonder if there's any constitutional reason a state couldn't make voting mandatory. Because if an individual state decided to adopt the Australian system, the scaling problems don't exist; only California and Texas have more people than Australia, and only California has significantly more.

A state could implement such a system if it wished. Voter registration is all screwy because the 2 big parties don't want change.

[RedImperator]

I wonder if there's any constitutional reason a state couldn't make voting mandatory. Because if an individual state decided to adopt the Australian system, the scaling problems don't exist; only California and Texas have more people than Australia, and only California has significantly more.

A state could implement such a system if it wished. Voter registration is all screwy because the 2 big parties don't want change.

I do wonder if there's a challenge somewhere to mandatory voting; 1st Amendment, maybe, arguing that refusing to vote is a legitimate and protected form of political protest. Also, almost certainly, a Free Exercise clause challenge from those religious groups that don't allow participation in civic life. Maybe a privacy challenge, too, though I can't see how that could possibly stand. The third would crash in burn in a court. The second would be upheld and open up a big can of worms. If the first went through, that would pretty much kill mandatory voting, though I suppose you could create an opt-out system to replace the current opt-in.

[thejester]

The term 'compulsory voting' isn't technically true in Australia, though. You rock up at the polling station, get your ballots, and then go to a booth. You don't actually have to tick anything before you stick them in the hole - you just need to get your name ticked off.

Not sure anyone is arguing for that, though. The example was simply that the Australian Electoral Commission is able to register and track every voting Australian for both state and federal elections. Whether or not you enforce compulsory voting is irrelevant; the issue is being able to register everyone effectively, and keep that updated.

[RedImperator]

The term 'compulsory voting' isn't technically true in Australia, though. You rock up at the polling station, get your ballots, and then go to a booth. You don't actually have to tick anything before you stick them in the hole - you just need to get your name ticked off.

Not sure anyone is arguing for that, though. The example was simply that the Australian Electoral Commission is able to register and track every voting Australian for both state and federal elections. Whether or not you enforce compulsory voting is irrelevant; the issue is being able to register everyone effectively, and keep that updated.

I'm not familiar with the special exceptions groups like the Amish or the Jehovah's Witnesses get, but they still might be exempt from registration, though again, you could fix that with an "opt-out" system. Once that's out of the way, the only problems I see would be the actual cost of setting up the registration database, getting everyone into it, and making contingency plans to deal with higher turnout. I don't see any technical or legal reason why, say, New Jersey couldn't decided everyone is automatically registered to vote when he turns 18 (in this state, you don't get your full driver's license until 18 anyway, so that's a perfect opportunity to sign most people up), unless he or she opts out.

[Ender]

Even if a state can't take mandatory voting and run with it, is there a reason they can't do mandatory registration based off state income tax forms? (legally, not in terms of logistics)

[starslayer]

Even if a state can't take mandatory voting and run with it, is there a reason they can't do mandatory registration based off state income tax forms? (legally, not in terms of logistics)

Not to my knowledge. It wouldn't violate the First amendment, because you're not being forced to vote, you just can if you wish; it wouldn't violate privacy, since the government already knows the pertinent info anyways; and you could include an opt-out clause to head off any possible legal objection.

[Aeolus]

Even if a state can't take mandatory voting and run with it, is there a reason they can't do mandatory registration based off state income tax forms? (legally, not in terms of logistics)

I can't see any reason why states that have an income tax couldn't use tax records to sign up voters. As long as their was an easy way for citizens to opt out.

[Edi]

Even if a state can't take mandatory voting and run with it, is there a reason they can't do mandatory registration based off state income tax forms? (legally, not in terms of logistics)

Nothing whatsoever to prevent this.

[General Zod]

Even if a state can't take mandatory voting and run with it, is there a reason they can't do mandatory registration based off state income tax forms? (legally, not in terms of logistics)

Don't income tax forms have to go through your employer, or at least your employer's payroll company depending on the type of organization? I can't see any reason employers should have access to information like knowing what party their employees are registered with.

[RedImperator]

Even if a state can't take mandatory voting and run with it, is there a reason they can't do mandatory registration based off state income tax forms? (legally, not in terms of logistics)

Don't income tax forms have to go through your employer, or at least your employer's payroll company depending on the type of organization? I can't see any reason employers should have access to information like knowing what party their employees are registered with.

Not your income tax return. That comes straight from the state revenue office and goes straight back. The only person who might see it is your accountant.

[General Zod]

Not your income tax return. That comes straight from the state revenue office and goes straight back. The only person who might see it is your accountant.

Okay, I wasn't entirely sure what Ender meant by Income Tax forms then. (I was thinking in terms of registering when you filed your W2, although I suppose tax returns would make more sense). Doesn't seem like a terribly efficient way of registering people though, considering how many people either aren't working when they hit 18, or legally aren't required to file tax returns even if they are working (ie - earning under a certain amount).

[Vendetta]

Don't income tax forms have to go through your employer, or at least your employer's payroll company depending on the type of organization? I can't see any reason employers should have access to information like knowing what party their employees are registered with.

Voter registration doesn't need to (and probably shouldn't) include party affiliation. Just individual personal identification (name, address, nationality), which the employer already has anyway. Sure, it wouldn't catch everyone, but it would get most people.

Combine that with mailouts like we get here (once a year you get a piece of paper through the door which asks who lives at the address and their nationality, you fill it in and send it back, or if it hasn't changed since last year log on to a website or phone a number and say so), and you get pretty much everyone registered in fairly short time. (Technically, there's a fine of up to £1000 for not registering as well).

[General Zod]

Voter registration doesn't need to (and probably shouldn't) include party affiliation. Just individual personal identification (name, address, nationality), which the employer already has anyway. Sure, it wouldn't catch everyone, but it would get most people.

One small snag is some states only let you vote in the primaries for the party you're registered with. So you'd have to either change those laws in order to allow for registration like this, or include which party you're with when you do register.

[Uraniun235]

How do homeless and unemployed people file tax returns? How do people who move get registered to vote?

"Well, they'd submit a voter registration form, dumbass."

Registration forms which... might contain errors... might be challenged... might be illegally rejected? What have we gained with this "tax returns system" again, and at what cost? Seems to me like the real problem isn't that people have a hard time getting registered*, it's that the registration review process needs to be reformed so that these illegal purges and other assorted chicanery are rewarded with firings and/or prison sentences.



*If people do have a hard time getting registered in some states, the registration process needs to be reformed in those states as well. If you have a massive hang-up on absolutely needing to have voter registration tied to photo ID, then the state needs to provide photo ID for anyone who wants it. Otherwise, you can be sane and allow other methods of identification.

[CmdrWilkens]

Uranium actually hit the nail on the head of the problem with most of the proposals: They will almost certainly miss at least one large block of voters whcih means it woudl have to be a system set up in tandem with the existing system in order to actually capture everyone and that defeats the purpose of reforming the system to have a new means of registration/participation.

Anything which uses ID sign ups misses those who either can't afford or don't register for state issued IDs
Anything which uses SSN information willinvariably miss a large number of folks in the poor and homeless categories, be subject to the current SSN fraud worries, and have issues with maitnaining an accurate ward/district picture.
Anything which uses tax forms misses those who don't file (which in MD for example includes anyone making less than $8.750 per year even those living at home)

Now you could setup a system which uses all of these but you are still disproportionately likely to miss out on the homeless and poor. Moreover with the Tax and ID based systems you've opened a whole new avenue of challenges.

I'm not saying that these systems wouldn't increase the number of eligible voters (and likley as not actual voters) but its a cost versus return because none of them can replace the existing system. What is needed in the US is a rather comprehensive reform of the very idea of local eligibility and a new means of tracking such (or at least establishing eligibility) without compromising security of the vote. I don't know what such a system would look like just yet btu I can say that there is no easy way to create it within the existing structure and THEN you run into the whole "its worked for 200-odd years why change it" mentality which is currently drumming up opposition to Early Voting in Maryland.

[Darth Wong]

Personally, I think that all of the brazen manipulation of the voting process comes down to the simple fact that people don't value their democracy enough. Or to put it another way, they value their various ideological causes (or political parties) more than they value the democratic nature of their country.

I think that if you took (for example) a hard-line anti-abortionist and asked him whether it would be right to manipulate an election if it would result in the overturning of Roe vs Wade, he would probably say "yes". His pet cause is more important to him than his nation's democratic system. Similarly, if you took millions of Republicans and asked them if they felt any discomfort at the fact that George W. Bush won power in 2000 despite getting fewer votes than the other guy, they would probably (if they're being honest) say they felt no discomfort whatsoever. No doubt they would quote the fact that the system is set up that way, even though the system should be set up in such a manner that it does not produce such outcomes. The real problem is that their party loyalty is more important to them than their country's democracy. You could probably get the same result asking about gay rights, environmental causes, etc. It's like this for many causes, on both left and right, although religious fanaticism can lend a particular fervour to one's beliefs which tends to give the right-wing an edge here.

Ultimately, if people have all manner of pet causes which are more important to them than their country's democracy, then they will naturally act accordingly.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I think its clear the left cares more, which is why they always...what's the term? put country first, if you will. And they concede contested elections and electoral manipulation and scorched-earth tactics in the name of liberal democracy.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well... my voter registration card has yet to show up... looks like I might be disenfranchised this year...