American Voter Registration

[Viking]

I hate to sound like Martinus, but why the hell is there such a thing as voter registration at all? Shouldn't citizenship be the sole condition required for voting? The only possible use of it that I can conceive is that it prevents election day gerrymandering (eg move hundreds of voters from a safe seat to a marginal seat).

Especially when I read stuff like this. These people in Florida are apparently (as presented in this article) are being actively prevented from being able to vote. Shouldn't getting an SSN, paying taxes, getting a drivers license, owning a home or owning/running a business while being a citizen automatically get you permanently registered to vote? Can I get an explanation please? Is gerrymandering fair dinkum in American politics?

When Voter Registration is a Crime

When Voter Registration is a Crime
Is a new war on voters dismantling our democracy?
By Adam Cohen | November 7, 2011

Dawn Quarles, a high school teacher, is facing a $1,000 fine for doing something Florida has been cracking down on lately: registering students to vote. The state's leaders want to stop registration drives that add more qualified voters to the rolls – and they are having a disturbing level of success.

Florida's crackdown on voter registration is part of a larger national campaign against voting, which includes tough new voter ID laws in many states, rollbacks on early voting and other anti-democratic measures. Supporters of these laws argue that they are concerned with deterring fraud. But the real driving force is keeping down the number of voters – especially young, old, poor, and minority voters.

Quarles is a government teacher at Pace High School in the Florida Panhandle. Along with teaching her students about democracy, she has tried to get them to participate, by helping them register to vote. This should be a good thing. Our nation's founders insisted that government should operate with the consent of the governed. Ideally, everyone who is eligible should be registered and vote.

In recent years, civic-minded organizations and political groups of various kinds have been conducting mass voter registration drives across Florida  – and they have been signing up a lot of voters who lean Democratic. The state's Republican elected officials have responded with a series of laws that make voting and voter registration much harder.

The rule that Quarles is accused of violating says that people who register others to vote must submit the filled-out forms within 48 hours, down from a previous requirement of 10 days. There is a $50 fine per late form, up to a maximum of $1,000. Even if a teacher puts the forms in the mail right away, depending on mail service, he or she could miss the deadline. The 48-hour rule serves no practical purpose except creating the fear that among people and groups who register voters that they will be late – and face large fines.

It isn't just teachers who are being intimidated. In May, after the law passed, the League of Women Voters announced that it was stopping its voter registration efforts in Florida, calling the law a "war on voters," and declaring that "under the false pretext of reducing 'fraud,' Florida's legislative leaders have instituted a law that will shut down the efforts of groups such as the League, the Boy Scouts, student groups, civic organizations, and others." Along with the fines for submitting late forms, Florida's new law cut the number of days of early voting from 14 to eight, and specifically eliminated early voting on the Sunday before Election Day. It is hard to see the rollback of early voting as anything but an attempt to make it harder for eligible voters to cast ballots.

The war on voters is taking different forms in different places. Some states have instituted tough new voter ID laws. Their supporters claim the purpose is deterring fraud, but the fact is that there are almost no documented cases of people showing up at the polls to vote and using a false identity. What the ID laws do, however, is make it hard for poor people, students, and the elderly – groups that are less likely than average to have driver's licenses – to vote.

Florida's new voting restrictions are being challenged in court as a civil rights violation as they especially affect minority voters. But the courts have a mixed record of reining in these anti-voting laws. When the Supreme Court had a chance to strike down Indiana's strict voter ID law in 2008, it declined to, saying there was little evidence that it was keeping qualified voters from casting ballots. A week later, at least 10 retired nuns, some in their 80s and 90s, were barred from voting in Indiana's Democratic primary because they did not have driver's licenses.

The courts should strike down laws like Florida's that interfere with voting rights. But better yet, legislatures should not pass them and should repeal the ones now on the books. In a democracy, candidates and political parties should prevail because they have the most support among the people – not because they have rigged the rules to favor their side.
Cohen, the author of Nothing to Fear, teaches at Yale Law School. The views expressed are his own.

[Eddie Teach]

Shouldn't getting an SSN, paying taxes, getting a drivers license, owning a home or owning/running a business while being a citizen automatically get you permanently registered to vote?

Seems you can do a fair number of those without acquiring citizenship first. 

[Caliga]

A lot of states have 'motor voter' laws where you can register to vote when you apply for or renew your driver's license.

[Viking]

Shouldn't getting an SSN, paying taxes, getting a drivers license, owning a home or owning/running a business while being a citizen automatically get you permanently registered to vote?

Seems you can do a fair number of those without acquiring citizenship first. 

thats why I included the bolded bit in my initial post

[Eddie Teach]

thats why I included the bolded bit in my initial post

Well if the driver's license isn't proof of citizenship, why do you think it should be sufficient to cast a vote? Presumably they want to check that at some point in the process.

[Viking]

thats why I included the bolded bit in my initial post

Well if the driver's license isn't proof of citizenship, why do you think it should be sufficient to cast a vote? Presumably they want to check that at some point in the process.

I phrased it as

doing activity X while being a citizen should automatically get you registered. So I'm not saying non-citizens should get registered while doing any of those activities, but rather those that could register would get registered in all cases.

[Admiral Yi]

Keep in mind Puff that the US doesn't have a single Gestapo-run database of the names and addresses of its citizens.  And the IRS, which probably has the most complete set, is forbidden by law from sharing personal information.

[Tamas]

I like it, I hope we will have it too. If voting is not important enough for you to register, you have no business around an election.

[grumbler]

I have moved multiple times and voter registration has never been an issue.

The article seems to me to be extremely biased.  While some of the laws seem absurd, they are being presented by a highly partial source, so i take his argument with a grain of salt.

The author appears to be asserting that the time to "submit" voter registration forms includes time in the mail; I'd bet real internet money that this is not true and that a postmark completes the requirement.

[Razgovory]

thats why I included the bolded bit in my initial post

Well if the driver's license isn't proof of citizenship, why do you think it should be sufficient to cast a vote? Presumably they want to check that at some point in the process.

I phrased it as

doing activity X while being a citizen should automatically get you registered. So I'm not saying non-citizens should get registered while doing any of those activities, but rather those that could register would get registered in all cases.

We actually have that.  Doing activity "X" while being a citizen automatically does get you registered.  However activity "X" is called "voter registration".

[Viking]

Keep in mind Puff that the US doesn't have a single Gestapo-run database of the names and addresses of its citizens.  And the IRS, which probably has the most complete set, is forbidden by law from sharing personal information.

In reference to the slur against Germans I must point out that IBM's daughter company in Germany ran the GeStaPo's lists.

But, as you say, you have multiple lists regulated by multiple agencies which do and do not overlap. Wasn't the Department of Homeland Security created to solve the same problem in policing. Wouldn't the constitutional rights of Americans to vote not merit such a common list?

The two things that are baffling me are that the government is not actively seeking to register all citizens itself, leaving that process up to NGOs; and that it seems that it seems to be a legitimate political activity to prevent the other side from registering voters likely to vote for the other side.

I'm a democrat before I'm a "Høyremann" (a member of the party in Norway which calls itself conservative but really is liberal, in the classical 1850s sense of the word). I'm much more concerned with maintaining the system of democracy than I am in achieving positive results in the next 4 year period. Why don't I see Americans standing up for these principles of mine? Is the culture war and the 4th great awakening to blame for labeling opponents as evil thus making cheating at democracy legitimate as long as it defeats evil?

[Viking]

thats why I included the bolded bit in my initial post

Well if the driver's license isn't proof of citizenship, why do you think it should be sufficient to cast a vote? Presumably they want to check that at some point in the process.

I phrased it as

doing activity X while being a citizen should automatically get you registered. So I'm not saying non-citizens should get registered while doing any of those activities, but rather those that could register would get registered in all cases.

We actually have that.  Doing activity "X" while being a citizen automatically does get you registered.  However activity "X" is called "voter registration".

Then I ask you this. Why do you have to register at all? Shouldn't it enough to be a citizen with proof of residence to get to vote in a specific district?

[Razgovory]

Then I ask you this. Why do you have to register at all? Shouldn't it enough to be a citizen with proof of residence to get to vote in a specific district?

So they know what voter district you are in.  You also can get your voting rights revoked for committing felonies.

[grumbler]

Then I ask you this. Why do you have to register at all? Shouldn't it enough to be a citizen with proof of residence to get to vote in a specific district?

I don't know what you mean by "proof of residence."  The US equivalent of "proof of residence" is voter registration.  Which, as I said, is easy as pie - you just mail in a postcard (which is postage-paid, AIR).  It takes some six weeks to actually get registered because of the bureaucratic process (you are right that this could be streamlined, but I think that should come as part of a general federalization of congressional elections), but it is simple and sure.

It is even easier to register when getting a driver's license or registering a car, but I have never done that because I never needed to. 

Plus, voting automatically renews one's registration.

[Viking]

Then I ask you this. Why do you have to register at all? Shouldn't it enough to be a citizen with proof of residence to get to vote in a specific district?

So they know what voter district you are in.  You also can get your voting rights revoked for committing felonies.

I don't think you understand my primary complaint. The government is not trying to find out what district you are in, the government is just waiting for you to tell them. Furthermore it seems, from the process as it seems to be, that you don't have to prove that you live in a district to get to vote there.