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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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I think the thing is, in America people aren't required to register their residence with the government. At least here in Austria, we are, and that doubles as voter registration if we are eligible to vote. So there is voter registration here too, but it is compulsory.
Ah, if that's the case, then I can get on board with a separate voting registration. Not sure, I'd prefer it, but at least it's not just arbitrarily making democracy harder.
Making democracy harder is definitely part of it. Elections are super regional in the US, so states have a ton of control. If a state elects a state government controlled by Party A, that party has a lot of incentive to make it harder for members of Party B to vote next time. So if Party B is mostly young and working class, you make it so elections take place when those people are stuck at work. If Party A is super religious, you make sure that voting spots are near (or inside) churches. If Party B is less likely to have access to a stable address or a driver’s license, you make registering to vote without those difficult, and you maybe wipe the voter rolls occasionally and require re-registration.
The goal is retaining power and not on strengthening democracy. It’s fucked up, and it’s going to get worse as each party is forced to continue escalating. You can’t fix the system without power, and you can’t get power without undermining the system. We all know something in this country is deeply broken, but we hate and distrust each other too much to work together to fix it.
Wow. Over here, we thankfully have more than two parties, so if one party attempts such a thing, the 5+ other parties will denounce that in unison and it becomes pretty clear that it's not just one of the usual quarrels.
It also means, you pretty much always have coalitions ruling the country, so not even the ruling parties have a shared interest in pushing anti-democratic horseshit. Many of the smaller parties would in fact really like to see more voters reached, because those are wildcards and not just voting for always the same big parties.
You definitely are required to register your home. Those property taxes aren't going to pay themselves.
But you don't need a home to vote. We went through a whole period in our early history where only land owners were allowed to vote, and generally only white men. It would be discriminatory to not allow homeless people to vote.
Homeless people can vote in Austria too. But they do have to register separately as such. For everyone else, the government already knows where they live (because we are required to register our residences) and uses that information to compile a voter registry .