Edit/Update: It turns out that my last name has a capitol letter in the middle and they put a space in it. Thank god. I can actually vote this year.
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As a European, the whole registering to vote thing is honestly one of the wildest parts of the US elections to me. It’s so unnecessary complicated and prone to errors/manipulation. I just have to show up with my ID, doesn’t matter if it’s for the EU parliament or the local city senate.
It’s by design. We could make it easier, but certain groups benefit from making it difficult.
In conclusion, please send the UN to fix us
The OSCE reports are usually just shy of scathing. The US reaction to those missions ranges, as far as I’m aware, from being completely oblivious to it or its results to Sheriffs trying to arrest observers.
Well the reason is that there are state laws against outside observers, and no treaty giving any foreign government the ability to monitor. So they’re just enforcing the laws, as they’re supposed to.
Mind you I’m not saying the UN or any other nation is going to interfere, but seems really important to follow laws around voting to make sure the attitude of enforcement isn’t lax.
I’m not too familiar with the specific legal status of the OSCE in American law, I bet there’s a treaty or the other, but generally speaking a) you’re a member and b) you regularly send out your own people as OSCE mission members into other countries to observe elections and c) Every member state gets observed (alongside non-member countries inviting the OSCE because it’s a stamp of approval and can help stabilise democracies, establish trust in the procedures). Cursory observations are done for basically all elections that aren’t strictly regional, more in-depth ones every couple of elections. It’s democracies holding each other accountable.
If Bumfuck, TX, wants to make a statement against Canadians observing their elections that’s their god-damned right but it’s also the duty of Washington to shut them the fuck up. Not too filled-in on the details either but when you start arresting people with diplomatic passports accredited by the federal level I think you should maybe take a step back and make a phone call before deploying handcuffs.
Well you go ahead and find those treaties for me, since I’ve never gotten a result back from a search. And I’d like to believe but have no proof of that.
On the one hand, the UN making a resolution that they won’t trust the results of the US elections would play right into the hands of what some MAGAs are saying.
But MAGAs then agreeing to any UN resolution, especially one that requires third party oversight…
I’d say the odds are even on this.
It’s wild.
There are some local and state governments trying to pass automatic voter registration, but it’s an uphill battle, not unlike most things that would generally benefit the public good in this country.
Even in California, we got automatic voter registration passed the legislature, only for the governor to veto it.
Just wild that something so fundamental to a functioning democracy is so divisive.
functioning democracy
That’s exactly why it’s divisive. They don’t want a functioning democracy.
There’s never been a United States ID card, for… reasons. As a Californian, I could get a California ID card, at the same place I got my California Driver’s License, if I didn’t intend to drive. The forms have the option of adding Voter Registration using the same information (birth certificate, proof of residence) at the same time. But some states make it all much more complicated.
United States ID card
Passport seems like it sorta fits, but it’s hardly universal.
Doesn’t have your address on it though.
Is it not an ID because of that? I don’t see the relevance of mentioning address here.
Edit: oh, proof of residence? I went back and re-read the GP. It makes more sense in that context.
As a European, the whole registering to vote thing is honestly one of the wildest parts of the US elections to me. It’s so unnecessary complicated and prone to errors/manipulation.
…what the electorate consider a bug the politicians consider a feature…
So… I’m in Texas , been here a long time.
most ballot counts in the primaries and general are counted by secret software and hardware run by ultra conservative families the last 20 plus years. Recounts are not allowed and exit polls not used anymore because of unpredictability.
Nobody cares, no political party wants to change : not a topic in forums anywhere, even in conspiracy minded chat rooms, and it’s been this way forever ( since before 2000).
There is a ton of crazy that is ignored .
I’ve seen how the system works, I’ve been at the county chair level. Nobody will criticize it . There is a quiet culture of people knowing it’s invalid but decide to leave it be.
It’s so unnecessary complicated and prone to errors/manipulation
That’s why it exists - to make it more inconvenient for people (especially in certain demographics) to vote.
Yeah but we have voter id. And for some reason Americans think it is unreasonable to have to have a government issued ID as this would disenfranchise all the people that don’t have an ID… Which I think is also weird. Just make IDs accessible to citizens at low costs and implement voterID across the board.
A certain political party benefits from low voter turnout. Which, coincidentally, also happens to be the party working to get Trump elected and shield him from the repercussions of his crimes.
Yeah. It’s also not as if doing this now will be reasonable. It will be something that needs to be put into law including the affordable national ID and then worked towards over the course of a decade or something.
They could just make a government ID that is not mandatory. Much like a passport. And whoever holds a passport or a voluntary govt ID is automatically enabled to vote using their ID / passport, but then would still leave the choice of manually registering for voting for those who don’t trust “the government” and don’t want a govt ID
Why? The whole “illegals are voting” will be dead in the water. And requiring someone to be able to ID themselves using a government issued and official ID when performing stuff like voting is not weird. The whole convoluted show up with birth certificate yadda yadda is.
Yeah that’s pretty much what I meant, sorry if I wasn’t clear.
I just think in order to reduce the resistance against such a change, it might be good to still provide the “old” method with voter registration for anyone who doesn’t want a government ID because of “muh freedoms”.
That way, any normal citizen can just have a government ID and by identifying themselves be able to vote without further registration. Any citizen who doesn’t want an ID can go through a voter registration process, same as today.
Just make IDs accessible to citizens at low costs
This is where you’re missing it. The point of requiring voter ID in America is to make it as difficult and inaccessible as they can
the sound bites you hear about voting are intentionally misleading: you have to show up with an id to vote here too and that’s not where to controversy lies; but the soundbites are setup to make it sound like it is to engender the reaction you’ve shared.
the controversy is registering to vote; not voting; and the conservative states intentionally make registering as heavily bureaucratic as possible in the hopes of minimizing the number of people who can successfully finish to process of registration.
they’ve also dedicated hundreds of millions on dollars to understand and enact policies to keep the poor and minority groups from voting.
usually democrats sit back and let republicans openly do it, but sometimes democrats do it themselves; the democratic governor of california just made automatic voter registration illegal; just as the conservative states do.
Hold on, I’m in MN and we don’t have to show our ID to vote.
the reason why we have this mess is because the states get to make up whatever rules they want around voting so long as they never officially block you from voting. doing so would force the federal government to step in, so the red & purple states are careful not to poke that bear and instead focus their voter suppression efforts on the aspects of voting that previous court cases had decided that federal government has no say: like registration.
biden won because most of the battleground states managed to make registration & voting easier; like the example you shared (except mn is not a battleground state); and they’ve all since then repealed that easier access.
Depends on the country though. In France you must be registered to vote (you’re assigned a specific voting office). It’s a single registration foe everything, not for each vote
Although the process is online, and takes like 5mins.
You also get a voting card, but it’s technically optional, it just speeds up the process in the voting office.
Just want to add, in the US you’d don’t have to register to vote each election/vote, just when you change address.
Imagine you moved countries, and were entitled to vote in both.
You have to tell the new country you exist there.
That’s the most common failure mode in the US, when you move states or even counties and there’s a miscommunication or lack of communication between where you came from and where you are. There is no top level federal voter database.
There are other issues, but this is the most common.
You don’t vote at a federal level, you vote at a state level, for federal stuff. (And state/local stuff)
I think for most people in the US when you move you have to get a new driver’s license, and that process also lets you register to vote as an automatic bonus if you check a box saying you want it
Some states have lifetime DL terms, while others are still ridiculously long.
Not every adult has a driver’s licence.
True, and that is an issue, but I guess the main thing I’m getting at is that despite voter registration not being a unified system a majority of people moving between states aren’t going to be deterred from registering by a Kafkaesque bureaucratic labyrinth.
That’s true but I’m just explaining the potential problem.
Are there people of voting age that are exempt from paying taxes? Because I’m pretty sure the federal government has a huge database of its citizens already through the IRS. People who became adults after the last tax season and people committing tax fraud would need to register manually once, but I don’t think that’s such a big risk.
As I said, federal government doesn’t handle this. So the IRS is involved for several reasons.
As a European, the whole registering to vote thing is honestly one of the wildest parts of the US elections to me. It’s so unnecessary complicated and prone to errors/manipulation. I just have to show up with my ID, doesn’t matter if it’s for the EU parliament or the local city senate.
I see comments like this a lot. Most important and apparently most difficult for Europeans (and others but it’s almost always Europeans) to understand is that the US is a very large country, made up of 50 semi-independent states, each with its own government and laws-- about many things, not just elections. So that’s why things are more complex here–we’re not a small monolithic nation with one single, centralized government and set of laws that apply to everyone no matter where in the country they live.
Each US State runs its own elections; a person obviously can’t be allowed to vote in more than one state. Since people can move from one state to another at any time, and even have residences in more than one state at the same time (such as college students and well-off people), it’s necessary to register with the state you will be voting in, so that you are officially able to vote in that state and no other.
update response to the replies: Funny, the replies to this post comparing the situation to that of their country with the EU is basically the relationship I was trying to explain, yet they think they have somehow refuted what I said, when actually they validated what I said. Here’s what’s really “wild”: First you call our system stupid, then when I explain our system to you, you say, “But that’s just like our system!” and then downvote me for making you realize that what you called stupid is what you also have. 😄
Read the original comment condescendingly asking “Why do you have to register to vote?” yet they are also registered to vote in their own country, but don’t even realize it because it was done automatically for them as a citizen. Your government has to track who is eligible to vote[1] and therefore in EU elections as well, one way or another, even if you don’t use the word “registered” for it.
BTW, Many US States also automatically register their residents to vote (though a person can optionally refuse that); other US states expect you to register for it yourself (perhaps some European countries too?). Each state makes its own laws about that. Once registered in a state, we can also vote in our Federal elections, just like you can vote in EU elections.
[1] Example: Germany voter eligibility:
Generally, to be allowed to vote in Germany, you need to be a German citizen who is at least 18 years old. You must also have been officially registered in the place where you’re voting, such as Berlin, for at least three months, and you must not be excluded from voting for other reasons (for example, if a court took away your right to vote because you were deemed legally incapable of making your own decisions).
You do realize some countries in Europe have federal governments (Germany for example), right? And then these completely independent countries are part of the EU which have EU elections. So you have federation within federation. Also, the EU has higher population than the USA. We don’t even all speak the same language. We are allowed to move between EU countries whenever we like and have residence where we please.
I think its not Europeans that don’t understand.
update: In case it is not clear, being registered automatically is the same as not having to register, which is what the post is about. Idk what that update word salad is supposed to be or why it is an update instead of a reply.
Wait, Europe isn’t just France, Germany and the UK?
If you weren’t so broke, you would know there is also Switzerland. ;)
Switzerland isn’t a part of Germany???
In a incredible stroke of irony, you just described the European Union
It’s overblown. It’s mostly propaganda.
I just have to show up with my ID
My ID is good for 5 years, and I am required to update it within 60 days of changing residences. Every time I’ve renewed or updated it, they have asked me if I wanted to register or update my voter registration. My registration is updated every time I vote, and I don’t get de-registered unless I skip voting for about a decade straight, without re-registering when I renew my ID card.
ALL of the problems with voter registration are about people who either can’t or won’t get or renew their ID card. Every time you read about voter registration issues in the US, you should imagine going to your polling station without a current ID card.
That’s called privilege. You literally don’t realize what a burden it is for some people to comply with voter registration requirements, because your life is such that it’s easy for you.
I could try and explain it, but in my experience every example I give, you’ll take out of context and come up with a simple fix. Because you aren’t able to understand the cumulative effect of thousands of these examples all happening all the time. You’ll just pick each one, imagine it happening to you in your life once, and think “oh that’s not a big deal I could handle that”. But it’s death by a thousand cuts. “That” is not a one time aberration. Your whole life is nothing but “that”.
You just have to believe those of us more experienced in that kind of hardship than you.
Or, alternatively, believe the Republicans who have been caught on a hot mic saying that they implent voter ID laws specifically to suppress Dem votes.
Hmm they did say “can’t” suggesting they acknowledge some folks have things blocking them
Yes, there are people who can’t obtain an ID card, for whatever reason. A European citizen who couldn’t obtain an ID card would have the exact same problems voting that an American citizen does. I don’t have a systemic solution for that. This would seem to be something that would need to be handled on a case-by-case basis, possibly involving the judicial system and a court order. It also doesn’t seem to be a particularly common problem. I’d bet all the money in my pockets that OP does, indeed, have some sort of ID card.
We have a remedy for this: Provisional ballots. Cast your vote now, and resolve any clusterfuck with registration later.
You don’t need an ID in Germany to vote just, push comes to shove, a way to make your identity believable. Expired ID, student ID, personalised public transport ticket, perfectly sufficient. Generally you just vote with your election notification, a sheet of paper with your address, ballot location, and number in the voter registry on it. If you try to vote with an ID but without notification workers are going to roll their eyes because they’ll have to manually search for you in their lists, heck, you might’ve turned up at the wrong location.
That’s called privilege. You literally don’t realize what a burden it is for some people to comply with voter registration requirements, because your life is such that it’s easy for you.
The “privilege” you are talking about is the exact same privilege the parent comment assumed:
I just have to show up with my ID, doesn’t matter if it’s for the EU parliament or the local city senate.
The “privilege” you are talking about is “having an ID card”. Every time you obtain, renew, replace, update, or otherwise contact the state bureau handling ID cards (usually, the DMV), they are required, under federal law, to update your voter registration unless you specifically decline.
The European standard is “get an ID card, show up and vote”. We implemented the European standard back in 1993.
Proving my point here. Yes, that’s privilege. It seems like normal to you, as all privilege does. But it’s very difficult for a lot of people.
But it’s very difficult for a lot of people.
It is, indeed, but the proper solution here is to lift them up to the bar, not lower the bar down to them.
Lack of ID prevents you from getting and keeping a job, attending school, accessing the banking system, getting a PO box, getting licenses. Being unable to vote is the least of your problems.
The proper solution is not to figure out how to make voting accessible to those without an ID. The proper solution is to get them an ID.
Nope. Voting is a fundamental right of a citizen. An illiterate dude living in a cave who has never even seen a concrete building should have the right to vote, if he’s a citizen. It is a civic responsibility for us to lower the bar for voting as low as possible to disenfranchise as few people as possible.
All those things you said about IDs are true, and yes we should be helping people get them. But in the mean time we must not disenfranchise them.
How would an illiterate dude living in a cave register to vote?
I guess America just can’t pull of what just about every European country does, but even then you don’t need this recurring manual registration mess. Just register everyone who filed a tax form last year and you should get most of the voting age population already.
“I’ve had no issues, therefore issues don’t exist”
What I’m describing has been federal law for over 30 years. The European criticism about ID cards is nonsensical. Every time you obtain, renew, or amend your drivers license or ID, you update your voter registration.
Remember the context of my comment: I am replying to European criticism of registration. The European approach is for everyone to obtain a government issued ID card and present it at the polling station. The NVRA already does this. We have already adopted the European solution to this problem.
I don’t need my ID to vote, also it’s valid for 10 years. Municipalities fill the voting registry from their citizens’ registry, then send out notifications to everyone. You literally cannot miss an election. You generally go voting with that notification, it’s sufficient, or use it to request a mail-in ballot.
I’m sure administration is sufficiently different in the US than it is in Germany for the thing to not be able to work like that, but, big picture: The IRS can find everyone. Have them fill the registry, then.
Except, the whole point of this thread is an example of that not being the case.
Oof. I checked mine three times this cycle to be sure. Never know when some awful mistake, like voting in a Democratic primary, will get your TX Voter info deleted.
You know, though, since we’re mostly left-leaning around these parts, just tell me the secret code and I’ll meet you at a basement in the People’s Republic of Austin and we’ll discuss getting three non-citizens to vote however you’d like, and then we can dine on the flesh of Christians to celebrate!
How are you guys looking on adrenochrome down that way? Supply shortages have hit us hard on the east coast. I’d kill for some fresh, virginal blood right about now.
I’d kill for some fresh, virginal blood right about now.
ISWYDT. Congratulations to you for your dark cleverness, fellow leftist devil!
Unfortunately, it’s not much better here. The annoyingly heroic Governor Abbott has heroically deployed the heroic Texas Military Department and is disrupting our usual channels along the Rio Grande, both for commodity Catholics, and for nefarious agents to procure high-end evangelical targets in Sugar Land and Southlake. On the plus side, the lack of fresh victims is stressing our natural rivals the Chupacabras, so once we stuff the ballot box and then eliminate all those who stand in our way, Stanley in logistics says things will be back to normal fairly soon, as the extraction facilities in the Planned Parenthood clinics have not yet been seized. Remember to keep an eye out for the distribution points marked out with the “Y’all means All” Pride flags!
Daddy Gates said it’s my turn to control the weather this time!
Only degreed meteorologists are allowed to control the weather, Jimmy!
dine on the flesh of Christians
Hard pass.
Too much fat, I’m on a diet.
Oh, you fool. Christians are part of the body of Christ, and communion involves eating of the body of Christ, and communion is entering into a convenant as a living member of the body of Christ…
Don’t eat the Christians. That’s how it spreads.
It’s like Mad Cow Disease, except most of the Christians around here have no brains.
you weren’t supposed to tell
That’s it, it hurricaneing time texas
…here’s the thing most folks don’t realise: as a metropolitan area, austin skews far more conservative than san antonio…
(we actually meet in the basement of the alamo)
THE STARS AT NIGHT!
Voter suppression go brrrrrr
Twitter and some other reich-wing places were doing fucky stuff like promoting register-to-vote sites that didn’t necessarily actually register you to vote. This is particularly true in Texas, because all the sites were online but Texas required you to register either in person or by snail mail. But the sites would display success messages and shit anyway.
Isn’t that a serious federal crime? How did they not get caught doing that?
News article: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/elon-musk-pac-voter-data-trump-harris.html
There was also trump handing out hundred dollar bills and musk offering money to people to register to vote, both of which also seem to be against the law. Fuck if I know why the government doesn’t seem to take this shit seriously.
AFAIK the government cannot take it seriously because the board of the FEC, like the Senate, is 50% Nazis: https://www.fec.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/
They live in Siberia?
To be fair IDK but it seems like the american law enforcement or the whole system isn’t working as expected.
Edit/Update: It turns out that my last name has a capitol letter in the middle and they put a space in it. Thank god. I can actually vote this year.
17.5: People’s names aren’t written in camelCase
Those are the kinds of inconsistencirs the GOP use to accuse you of voter fraud, even if you correct it. Don’t be surprised if some GOP busybody adds your name to a list of voter registrations to purge. Whenever they talk about voting irregularities and a rigged election, this is exactly the kind of voter disenfranchisement that they are trying to accomplish. Hell, question enough votes and you can get the votes of an entire region thrown out. You don’t need any proof to make the accusations, then they massive shit sandwich gets dropped in the lap of a few underpaided and understaffed people to substantiate. I recommend you vote as early as possible and follow up to make sure your vote gets counted.
Alexander De Large?
Something like that, except it’d be DeLarge and it’s in the system with a space and apparently case-insensitive
by the way if you vote by mailing it in, in Florida your vote could be denied without you even knowing.
They verify the signatures and a lot of recent young adults never really had a proper signature, it also happens that a lot of youth vote blue.
Invalidating a vote based on signature analysis sounds like a recipe for a MASSIVE probe into election integrity.
Won’t matter if it pushes it past Jan 6th and the vote isn’t certified.
Also wont matter with the supreme court sitting at 2/3rds fascist
Mildly?
Not a Texan, but here in Missouri, you can request your absentee ballot as early as 9/24 this year.
I requested mine, waited two weeks, and it never arrived. So last week I requested another, and I’m waiting for it. I do think there’s some fuckery afoot with the mail, so I’m probably going to be stuck voting absentee in-person at my local election board.
Mail-in voting isn’t allowed for most Texans. There are only a few very specific exceptions.
One of those exceptions is to be 65 years or older. Guess who that disproportionately benefits?
At the same time those Republicans who they’d hope to gain support from by allowing to vote by mail now believe that voting by mail will lead to fraud.
Honestly early voting isn’t too much of a pain. I already know I’ll be out of town for work on election day but because of early voting I’ll be able to get it done before then. It’s silly how complicated a process they make registration and how most of the polling locations are churches, but allowing voting by mail won’t fix the main issue here, registration.
That’s shitty. I’m sorry to hear it.
It’s just one of the many voter suppression tactics used in Texas.
Made me go check mine and I don’t live in texas.
Important: If you’re on the suspese list rather than being fully removed (unsure if that’s the case here), you might still be able to vote but will need to show proof of residence. Contact your registrar to check that and ask them about it
If voters find out they’re still on the suspended list after having shown up at their polling places on Election Day, they can still vote after they complete a “statement of residence” form.
Voters with suspended status who may have moved to other counties will be required to vote in the counties where they previously resided or may be asked to submit provisional ballots.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/texas-voter-purge-warning-ballots-abbott-rcna168811
As a note to all: Check your voter registration status today as deadlines are very fast approaching (or even already past in some states)
Yes, my husband was on the suspended list in our county for years, despite us owning the same home since 2013. He’d even fill out the little address verification card and send it back, stating that the location on record was still valid. Didnt matter, because every single election he would still pop up “suspended” at the polls. He had his TDL, and he’d have to fill out an extra form, but he’d be allowed to vote.
This year, I decided enough was enough and we put our house up for sale, because once I leave Texas this time, I’m not coming back.
I contacted our county registrars office to get our VUIDs so I could update our new address at our rental, and we found out he just…didnt have a VUID? They had no record of him voting in Texas at all…yet he’s been able to vote with a “suspended” status with his TDL for years now…living at an address he hasnt deviated from since he originally registered in Texas.
Honestly, I think he was just finally removed since he’d been in “suspended” so long 🤷♀️. Im unsure if it was a legit mistake, or if some genuine fuckery was going on.
But we’re all gucci now. Both confirmed registration again back in September. Awaiting 21 Oct with bated breath!
That doesn’t look like the site specifically for TX. Not sure if there might be something that could cause another site to report an error.
Double check at
You’ll need to enter your TDL (Texas Driver’s License Number) and date of birth after clicking the “Am I Registered?” button
Yep, not found
I was hoping you’d be able to find it.
Maybe you can contact your county registrar and see what happened. The deadline for voter registration for the presidential election was October 7. Maybe there’s something that can be done.
That’s fucking dumb. I hope you’re able to rectify it. Sorry you have to deal with that shit.
I’m going through the same shit in Indiana. Waiting on a response grim my local office.
Grim indeed.
Ha, didn’t notice that typo.
Hell, I’m in NY and my partner’s voter registration keeps getting reset to an old address she doesn’t live at any more. She’s fixed it like three times this year.
@thefartographer@lemm.ee Have you checked yours? Mine is all good.
Yup! Mine and every voting age member of my family in San Antonio! Thanks for checking
Apparently there are more Texans around than we initially thought.
Is that a good thing? Should there really be more of us?
I have made no claims as to the goodness or badness of the situation. I’m just observing.
But no matter how many Texans show up there’s no replacement for us.
Online voting what could go wrong
Please. Please tell me no one is actually considering online voting. There’s no way to maintain anonymity and vote integrity.
