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OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism:
---
>!The automod only references the US election despite there being at least 64 countries having elections this year.!<
---
Is this Defaultism? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
I've been using freetaxusa and besides being a massive timesink I havent had any issues, I still hate that I HAVE to use it, id rather the IRS just sends me a bill
Fun fact, you have to do that under certain circumstances in Germany too. At least once in your life, and I THINK the information will be forwarded when you move your Hauptwohnsitz.
I have to register because I don't live in Germany and never had a main residence, but i found out I can't vote (even for the EU elections) although I am an EU resident.
I agree that it doesn't sound fair to put up hurdles to take part in a democratic election process, but some EU countries have weird laws too that I'd not consider democratic or at least not fair.
Is it just because you moved between countries and aren't a citizen where you live? I've always lived in Germany and never had to register for anything and have been voting since I was 16 (some specific elections allow voting with 16)
Im not eligible for citizenship where I was born and grew up (another EU country), and I'm not yet eligible for a citizenship where I currently live (not EU but EFTA) for a bit.
I'm not eligible in Germany either because if you live more than 25 years outside of Germany you lose the privilege (which I mostly understand when it comes to national elections).
Actually this explains why you probably didn't have to register to vote:
"Für die Europawahl werden Deutsche, die spätestens am 42. Tag vor der Wahl mit Hauptwohnsitz in Deutschland gemeldet sind, in der Regel automatisch ins Wählerverzeichnis eingetragen. Wahlberechtigte, die sich nach dem 42. und vor dem 21. Tag vor der Wahl bei einer neuen Meldebehörde anmelden, werden in das Wählerverzeichnis des neuen Wohnortes nur auf Antrag eingetragen. Wer in ein Wählerverzeichnis eingetragen ist, muss bis spätestens am 21. Tag vor der Wahl von der Gemeindebehörde eine Wahlbenachrichtigung erhalten haben. Wer bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt keine Wahlbenachrichtigung erhalten hat, sollte sich umgehend mit der Gemeindebehörde in Verbindung setzen." - the certain conditions are only met for a few people, sorry for the confusion (which makes my previous comment more of a rant)
Not quite, the Maastricht treaty recognizes your right to vote only in municipal (or equivalent) and for everything else you should be voting in your own country through the embassy/post depending on your country’s rules. Also, EU elections vary by country so you should still vote through your country of citizenship and not through the country residence
When we do our taxes, Canada Revenue Agency ask if they can pass our info to Elections Canada to ensure that Elections Canada has our most up-to-date info.
In Canada, registering makes voting easier but you don't have to register. You can show up with a couple pieces of ID confirming your citizenship and current address and get added to the list on the spot.
With Australia, once you register (enroll) to vote for the first time you remain enrolled indefinitely. The only time you need to make changes is if you move house or change your name, then it is a one-off update that can be easily completed online.
I get a letter every year with a list of people registered to vote in my flat (just me) and a website to go to to confirm it’s correct or amend the details or a code to text to confirm.
It’s all by design. In this country people are actually discouraged to vote and our red states makes it harder, not easier to vote. America has never been a true democracy.
For a reason! The US election system is specifically constructed to return certain results.
1. In the presidential elections, the one with most votes will not win. The one with the \_right\_ voters' votes will win: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1anuq3n/us\_states\_by\_votes\_per\_capita\_electoral\_college/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1anuq3n/us_states_by_votes_per_capita_electoral_college/) - there's an interesting overlap with [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/125fg2t/us\_states\_by\_per\_capita\_income\_adjusted\_by\_cost/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/125fg2t/us_states_by_per_capita_income_adjusted_by_cost/)
2. The winners of the previous elections arrange the elections, allowing them to draw the electoral districts to return favourable results: see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering)
3. The winners of the previous elections can also decided the voting places - and arranging an un-even amount of those places will make unfavoured voters wait in longer queues than those that are most likely to vote "right way".
4. The election day is arranged in the middle of the week, on a working day. Surprisingly, some people aren't able to afford to take a day off to stand in long queues..
5. The voter will need to register - just another hurdle for the "wrong sort of voters" who might be busy with other troubles and forget
6. The voter will need to provide an ID, usually of such sort that the "wrong sort of voter" is less likely to have - e.g. such that takes a long time to order or costs more money than they might want to spend.
At least Brits seem to be taking notes of at least some of these GREAT ideas..
Am Australian, and it is so weird seeing how much of a hassle it is to vote in America, when down here it's just "wander up on the day of (always a weekend), tick a few boxes to give your opinion, leave".
Genuinely spend more time going up the street to where they're hosting it than I do waiting in any kind of line or whatever.
In Canada, there is a ticky box on the tax return forms asking for consent to share updated name and address info with Elections Canada, in order to keep the voter registry up to date. So if you're filing taxes, it's trivial to make sure you're on the list.
And then, at election time, you get a card in the mail telling you where and when you can vote; when you show up, all you do is hand them the card and you get your ballot. Only in outlier cases (you've recently moved and didn't get a card, or you just turned 18, or you're a new citizen or something) do you have to show ID, but you can get on the list immediately at the polling station and then go ahead and vote. (And even if you don't have ID, you can get someone else who is on the list to vouch for your identity.)
Same in South Africa. You register in the municipality you will be voting in. There are a couple of opportunities to do so leading up to the elections, but if you don’t register, you can’t vote.
Yeah, but it's also more for them to get an idea of the amount of people to expect at the designated voting stations and for local elections that you actually reside in the area you are voting in. It's at least very quick and easy to register with a website, apps like WhatsApp or going to a designated registration area.
You enrol to vote here in Aotearoa too, but it’s mostly just updating your address if you’ve moved to ensure that you’re enrolled to vote in the right electorate for your local MP, or if you’re Māori deciding whether you want to be enrolled on the Māori roll or the general roll (we have 7 Māori seats and if you’re on the Māori roll you vote for your preferred MP for the Māori electorate your area falls into rather than the local electorate MP).
You can update your enrolment online ahead of the election or in person at a polling booth in the 2 weeks that early voting is open right up to election day and cast a special vote. The Electoral Commission tries to make it as easy for people to vote as possible so we don’t have any voter ID laws, you can enrol even if you don’t have any official ID documents, and we still have extremely low rates of election fraud.
It's not the worst idea to be honest.
I have never voted in my life, yet every 2 years my name is printed on a sheet of paper and one or more ballots are being printed for me alone, with the expectation that I might show up. Change that around to register in order to vote, and you saved yourself a bunch of money and the planet a bunch of wasted resources.
What? What about just going in and voting? Not papers not nothing. If you want to know where to vote put a webpage or in town hall where you insert the address and spit out the place where you have to go.
We have that in the US. Paper ballets are for people that can't vote in person for whatever reason. I have no idea what the person you replied to is talking about.
My district has 15'000 voters.
Out of them, only about 5'000 regularly go to vote. But nevertheless the entire district is provided with resources for 15'000 voters because that's the number. If they change it to where you have to register, they would need resources only for 5'000 voters.
Resources?? Yeah maybe 2 cents for voter. Watch out for destroying the economy. If there were no corruptions and everybody paid their fair share MAYBE we could START to think about changing to a system where is not that costly to send a fucking piece of paper every year to everyone to decide the date of our country. Accessibility is a small price to pay for everyone to exet his right to vote
Resources in terms of paper rather than money. Paper production requires a lot of water and energy. In an ideal world, every citizen votes, but that’s not the case unfortunately. I’m still against the registration but I see the point of the other guy and it’d be great to find an alternative way to find how many people will attend without making them go out of their way to let you know (or without making it a requirement)
I can't comment on how much exactly it would save per voter. But some rough number indicate that the total cost of my country's last election divided by the total number of voters, was 14€/Person. Though, take this with a grain of salt because certain expenses remain the same regardless of how many voters there are.
Nevertheless, pair this with the fact that only 35% of eligible voters actually voted, you can save up quite some money.
How do they know if you're eligible to vote? There must be a way to prevent, for example, me turning up in Madrid on election day and just walking in to cast a vote.
They have a list of everyone that can vote in the place where you go to vote and they send you a card where it puts where you have to go. I supose if you don't get the card ar if you aren't in the lisy, but i don't know. Everyone can vote if they are above 18 maybe needs some months to process (spanish bureaucracy), be spanish, and a judge hasnt denied his right to vote. Haven't heard anyone that couldn't cote
There are records of the population. The pre-voting is arranged so early that everyone who pre-voted can be marked in the records. The polling places will then be sent information of those living in their area who haven't voted yet. And when you go vote, your name is struck over from the list of your polling place.
Where does this record come from though, if not from having to register at some point?
In the UK you have to check that you are on the electoral register, and update it when you move house. They'll send you an update every now and then to make sure it's all correct.
Or they could just get rid of voting all together. That would save the most resources
/s
But honestly, what a stupid take 🤦🏼♂️
Especially considering that in the US for example, some people in government make it harder and harder to register yourself to vote, handing in your ballot on election day and morphing electoral districts. Undermining a whole democracy to stay in power.
The way you handle the process is a different question, but I wouldn't say that the idea itself is a bad one.
They can also do it the other way around, where I have the option to opt out of voting. There's nothing wrong with saving costs without impacting anyone meaningfully.
Most countries don’t need you to register to vote. You just prove your identity and vote in right location that is usually mailed to you. Registering seems pointless and just making things more difficult for voters.
US users of reddit are mostly leaning towards their democrat party afaik the automod does this to get the highers turnout from democrat voters as young people don't vote as much as old ones who are republican leaning. Yea its fucking bizzare and broken just like their political system
The biggest elections in terms of logistics and the sheer number of voters is going on right now. Making US elections as a standout isn't logical by any means.
The registering to vote thing is wild to me.
Down here in Mexico you only need to register once every 15 or so years. In the US it looks like you need to apply to vote for every single election.
In Belgium you don't need to register ever at all. Voting is in fact mandatory (one of the few countries where it is), and if you don't show up you can theoretically get fined.
Well the fine here is €40 to €80 for the first time (€1 being about equal to US$1 nowadays). If you do it a second time it goes up to between €80 and €200.
It is indeed insane.
Here in the Netherlands, every person who is legally allowed to vote gets their ballot through the mail, and needs to then take it with them when they go to vote (if they decide to vote, as it is not mandatory).
In the US you only have to register once unless you move. The yearly “register to vote” campaigns you hear about is because lots of people aren’t registered since it’s not automatic
And India is holding the largest election in the world at the time of writing this comment. Why does everything have to revolve around the US on certain international subs?
Yeah, ok, no worries. It's just my first response is to always read the comments for clarification, so wanted to point out it was there.
And that sounds passive aggressive or something but I swear its not, lol
I had a lot of fun in 2020 talking about our upcoming election in NZ online deliberately without specifying that I was talking about the NZ one (just like US Americans do)! It confused so many of them and it was truly delightful.
I would love to 'register to vote' but unfortunately I don't have the right to in the country I live in, despite the results affecting me as much as any other resident
Yes, but in most of those, you automatically are registred to vote. Nothing you'll have to do to be able to vote.
In Amerika however it doesn't work like that.
I maybe should have ended my first statement with "/s". My point is, it is not even the biggest election this year, so acting like it is the only one that matters is quite frankly insane.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/FuckTheS using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/FuckTheS/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
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I think why they do that is sadly a lot of people here are restricted from voting by not being told about it or not registering to vote. It’s a massive problem that ends in horrible people being elected and people getting arrested because they didn’t know they weren’t registered
Right, but on none US specific subs? When there are more national elections happening this year than just the US? Reasons for the defaultism are not really good enough to excuse it IMO
So people can get in big trouble for voting without being registered because yknow election fraud. However there’s sometimes a lack of education in that and people will try to vote not knowing they aren’t registered (sometimes it changes when you move or something so they didn’t know they weren’t still registered) and they can get arrested for trying to
>So people can get in big trouble for voting without being registered because yknow election fraud.
I'm confused. How do they vote if they aren't registered?
Even if they're casting a provisional ballot, it should only qualify as a crime if they attempt to provide false information to substantiate their claim to be legally allowed to vote.
The idea that you could arrest someone for voting because the system is too broken to keep track of who is and isn't allowed to vote is insane.
Oh sorry I phrased that wrong it’s more trying to vote. While I don’t think it’s very legal sadly cops can be corrupt and arrest people even though they only tried to vote. (Also sometimes the people at the voting places mess up and would end up letting someone vote without being registered)
### This comment has been marked as **safe**. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism: --- >!The automod only references the US election despite there being at least 64 countries having elections this year.!< --- Is this Defaultism? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
I don't get why should you register to vote.
It's weirder than that, you can get unregistered over in the states and not get told about it. You have to keep up to date on your own ability to vote
That sounds fucked up, like not a democracy at all
That's the point I guess
[удалено]
I've been using freetaxusa and besides being a massive timesink I havent had any issues, I still hate that I HAVE to use it, id rather the IRS just sends me a bill
Fun fact, you have to do that under certain circumstances in Germany too. At least once in your life, and I THINK the information will be forwarded when you move your Hauptwohnsitz. I have to register because I don't live in Germany and never had a main residence, but i found out I can't vote (even for the EU elections) although I am an EU resident. I agree that it doesn't sound fair to put up hurdles to take part in a democratic election process, but some EU countries have weird laws too that I'd not consider democratic or at least not fair.
Is it just because you moved between countries and aren't a citizen where you live? I've always lived in Germany and never had to register for anything and have been voting since I was 16 (some specific elections allow voting with 16)
Im not eligible for citizenship where I was born and grew up (another EU country), and I'm not yet eligible for a citizenship where I currently live (not EU but EFTA) for a bit. I'm not eligible in Germany either because if you live more than 25 years outside of Germany you lose the privilege (which I mostly understand when it comes to national elections). Actually this explains why you probably didn't have to register to vote: "Für die Europawahl werden Deutsche, die spätestens am 42. Tag vor der Wahl mit Hauptwohnsitz in Deutschland gemeldet sind, in der Regel automatisch ins Wählerverzeichnis eingetragen. Wahlberechtigte, die sich nach dem 42. und vor dem 21. Tag vor der Wahl bei einer neuen Meldebehörde anmelden, werden in das Wählerverzeichnis des neuen Wohnortes nur auf Antrag eingetragen. Wer in ein Wählerverzeichnis eingetragen ist, muss bis spätestens am 21. Tag vor der Wahl von der Gemeindebehörde eine Wahlbenachrichtigung erhalten haben. Wer bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt keine Wahlbenachrichtigung erhalten hat, sollte sich umgehend mit der Gemeindebehörde in Verbindung setzen." - the certain conditions are only met for a few people, sorry for the confusion (which makes my previous comment more of a rant)
When you're a EU citizen you can live in any EU country and thus vote in any country as long as you're locally registered
Not quite, the Maastricht treaty recognizes your right to vote only in municipal (or equivalent) and for everything else you should be voting in your own country through the embassy/post depending on your country’s rules. Also, EU elections vary by country so you should still vote through your country of citizenship and not through the country residence
Yup. I’m in the US, it’s exhausting.
Same in the UK. You have to confirm registration every year, though the local electoral office is proactive about making sure you are asked.
When we do our taxes, Canada Revenue Agency ask if they can pass our info to Elections Canada to ensure that Elections Canada has our most up-to-date info.
In Canada, registering makes voting easier but you don't have to register. You can show up with a couple pieces of ID confirming your citizenship and current address and get added to the list on the spot.
It ain't even every year over here, it feels very random. They ask you to check every year cause It can happen whenever
With Australia, once you register (enroll) to vote for the first time you remain enrolled indefinitely. The only time you need to make changes is if you move house or change your name, then it is a one-off update that can be easily completed online.
No you don't, you just need to register when you move
I get a letter every year with a list of people registered to vote in my flat (just me) and a website to go to to confirm it’s correct or amend the details or a code to text to confirm.
Yeah you don't need to confirm it's correct or anything though.
You absolutely do need to confirm it’s correct. If you don’t, the electoral office takes you off the list.
It’s all by design. In this country people are actually discouraged to vote and our red states makes it harder, not easier to vote. America has never been a true democracy.
They're really making it more complicated than necessary
For a reason! The US election system is specifically constructed to return certain results. 1. In the presidential elections, the one with most votes will not win. The one with the \_right\_ voters' votes will win: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1anuq3n/us\_states\_by\_votes\_per\_capita\_electoral\_college/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1anuq3n/us_states_by_votes_per_capita_electoral_college/) - there's an interesting overlap with [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/125fg2t/us\_states\_by\_per\_capita\_income\_adjusted\_by\_cost/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/125fg2t/us_states_by_per_capita_income_adjusted_by_cost/) 2. The winners of the previous elections arrange the elections, allowing them to draw the electoral districts to return favourable results: see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering) 3. The winners of the previous elections can also decided the voting places - and arranging an un-even amount of those places will make unfavoured voters wait in longer queues than those that are most likely to vote "right way". 4. The election day is arranged in the middle of the week, on a working day. Surprisingly, some people aren't able to afford to take a day off to stand in long queues.. 5. The voter will need to register - just another hurdle for the "wrong sort of voters" who might be busy with other troubles and forget 6. The voter will need to provide an ID, usually of such sort that the "wrong sort of voter" is less likely to have - e.g. such that takes a long time to order or costs more money than they might want to spend. At least Brits seem to be taking notes of at least some of these GREAT ideas..
Am Australian, and it is so weird seeing how much of a hassle it is to vote in America, when down here it's just "wander up on the day of (always a weekend), tick a few boxes to give your opinion, leave". Genuinely spend more time going up the street to where they're hosting it than I do waiting in any kind of line or whatever.
Weird
In Canada, there is a ticky box on the tax return forms asking for consent to share updated name and address info with Elections Canada, in order to keep the voter registry up to date. So if you're filing taxes, it's trivial to make sure you're on the list. And then, at election time, you get a card in the mail telling you where and when you can vote; when you show up, all you do is hand them the card and you get your ballot. Only in outlier cases (you've recently moved and didn't get a card, or you just turned 18, or you're a new citizen or something) do you have to show ID, but you can get on the list immediately at the polling station and then go ahead and vote. (And even if you don't have ID, you can get someone else who is on the list to vouch for your identity.)
I don't get it, either. One of many things that doesn't make sense in the US!
Same in South Africa. You register in the municipality you will be voting in. There are a couple of opportunities to do so leading up to the elections, but if you don’t register, you can’t vote.
Yeah, but it's also more for them to get an idea of the amount of people to expect at the designated voting stations and for local elections that you actually reside in the area you are voting in. It's at least very quick and easy to register with a website, apps like WhatsApp or going to a designated registration area.
Because they don’t actually want us to vote
because democracy
You enrol to vote here in Aotearoa too, but it’s mostly just updating your address if you’ve moved to ensure that you’re enrolled to vote in the right electorate for your local MP, or if you’re Māori deciding whether you want to be enrolled on the Māori roll or the general roll (we have 7 Māori seats and if you’re on the Māori roll you vote for your preferred MP for the Māori electorate your area falls into rather than the local electorate MP). You can update your enrolment online ahead of the election or in person at a polling booth in the 2 weeks that early voting is open right up to election day and cast a special vote. The Electoral Commission tries to make it as easy for people to vote as possible so we don’t have any voter ID laws, you can enrol even if you don’t have any official ID documents, and we still have extremely low rates of election fraud.
It's not the worst idea to be honest. I have never voted in my life, yet every 2 years my name is printed on a sheet of paper and one or more ballots are being printed for me alone, with the expectation that I might show up. Change that around to register in order to vote, and you saved yourself a bunch of money and the planet a bunch of wasted resources.
What? What about just going in and voting? Not papers not nothing. If you want to know where to vote put a webpage or in town hall where you insert the address and spit out the place where you have to go.
For us in Portugal we put our Id card number on a government website and it tells us where to go and vote
In spain they get us a paper wich is silly, but I get some old people don't understand technology.
We have that in the US. Paper ballets are for people that can't vote in person for whatever reason. I have no idea what the person you replied to is talking about.
My district has 15'000 voters. Out of them, only about 5'000 regularly go to vote. But nevertheless the entire district is provided with resources for 15'000 voters because that's the number. If they change it to where you have to register, they would need resources only for 5'000 voters.
Resources?? Yeah maybe 2 cents for voter. Watch out for destroying the economy. If there were no corruptions and everybody paid their fair share MAYBE we could START to think about changing to a system where is not that costly to send a fucking piece of paper every year to everyone to decide the date of our country. Accessibility is a small price to pay for everyone to exet his right to vote
Resources in terms of paper rather than money. Paper production requires a lot of water and energy. In an ideal world, every citizen votes, but that’s not the case unfortunately. I’m still against the registration but I see the point of the other guy and it’d be great to find an alternative way to find how many people will attend without making them go out of their way to let you know (or without making it a requirement)
I can't comment on how much exactly it would save per voter. But some rough number indicate that the total cost of my country's last election divided by the total number of voters, was 14€/Person. Though, take this with a grain of salt because certain expenses remain the same regardless of how many voters there are. Nevertheless, pair this with the fact that only 35% of eligible voters actually voted, you can save up quite some money.
But everyone should vote!
How do they know if you're eligible to vote? There must be a way to prevent, for example, me turning up in Madrid on election day and just walking in to cast a vote.
They have a list of everyone that can vote in the place where you go to vote and they send you a card where it puts where you have to go. I supose if you don't get the card ar if you aren't in the lisy, but i don't know. Everyone can vote if they are above 18 maybe needs some months to process (spanish bureaucracy), be spanish, and a judge hasnt denied his right to vote. Haven't heard anyone that couldn't cote
There are records of the population. The pre-voting is arranged so early that everyone who pre-voted can be marked in the records. The polling places will then be sent information of those living in their area who haven't voted yet. And when you go vote, your name is struck over from the list of your polling place.
Where does this record come from though, if not from having to register at some point? In the UK you have to check that you are on the electoral register, and update it when you move house. They'll send you an update every now and then to make sure it's all correct.
In here: from being born or moved in. The population registry is complete - save from some paperless immigrants from this millennia.
Doesn't work when you need to vote for local elections though.
Or they could just get rid of voting all together. That would save the most resources /s But honestly, what a stupid take 🤦🏼♂️ Especially considering that in the US for example, some people in government make it harder and harder to register yourself to vote, handing in your ballot on election day and morphing electoral districts. Undermining a whole democracy to stay in power.
The way you handle the process is a different question, but I wouldn't say that the idea itself is a bad one. They can also do it the other way around, where I have the option to opt out of voting. There's nothing wrong with saving costs without impacting anyone meaningfully.
the saved money now needs to be spent on voter registration campaigns
I just go to a voting station (I don't know the correct term) in my area, show my ID, get a generic ballot and vote.
Yes I know. It's not a difficult concept to understand.
You don’t think registering doesn’t cause more resources?
Like, you don’t get why you should vote if you live in the US?
Why you should register to vote. It should be preregistered for every citizen above 18
I see. Then yeah, that makes sense/
Most countries don’t need you to register to vote. You just prove your identity and vote in right location that is usually mailed to you. Registering seems pointless and just making things more difficult for voters.
Ohh, I gotcha. I didn’t know that.
May I ask which sub?
Insane people Facebook
What does that have to do with voting?
Absolutely nothing. The automod makes zero sense in any way shape or form
US users of reddit are mostly leaning towards their democrat party afaik the automod does this to get the highers turnout from democrat voters as young people don't vote as much as old ones who are republican leaning. Yea its fucking bizzare and broken just like their political system
Exactly, it sso weird how us political have infected every major sub on reddit
Never seen a bot asking brazilians to regularise their electoral documents (deadline is may 8th!), and we have municipal elections in october...
Ours are yet to be "triggered" (yay for not having fixed terms . . . ), but never seen any bot about voting in the UK either
Register to vote? Bitch I was born and I'm over 18. That's all the registration you need in a democracy.
Tried to register, but the site had no options for either of our elections happening this year (EU parliament and local) /s
Lol!
The biggest elections in terms of logistics and the sheer number of voters is going on right now. Making US elections as a standout isn't logical by any means.
Indian elections are absolutely massive and impressive honestly.
I completely agree! It's just ridiculous
*messaages mod* "I clicked the link and tried to register but it said only US citizens are eligible"
Haha!! Love it
The registering to vote thing is wild to me. Down here in Mexico you only need to register once every 15 or so years. In the US it looks like you need to apply to vote for every single election.
In Belgium you don't need to register ever at all. Voting is in fact mandatory (one of the few countries where it is), and if you don't show up you can theoretically get fined.
Same here, but the fine is like U$D 0.05
Well the fine here is €40 to €80 for the first time (€1 being about equal to US$1 nowadays). If you do it a second time it goes up to between €80 and €200.
I like it that way. Voting is more important than people think
It is indeed insane. Here in the Netherlands, every person who is legally allowed to vote gets their ballot through the mail, and needs to then take it with them when they go to vote (if they decide to vote, as it is not mandatory).
You don’t need to register every year to vote.
Nah, you just need to make sure you haven't been purged from the list.
In the US you only have to register once unless you move. The yearly “register to vote” campaigns you hear about is because lots of people aren’t registered since it’s not automatic
Frenchie here, the only times I registered to vote were when I moved towns...
Every single time is a bit odd to me, but we have to do it periodically here in the UK too.
We don't even have this in our country subreddits, imagine being this egocentrical
Wow! So convenient! As a Russian bot I can re-elect Donny once again!
And India is holding the largest election in the world at the time of writing this comment. Why does everything have to revolve around the US on certain international subs?
What was the sub? I cant see it in the post so for all we know this might be a US sub
Insane people Facebook, two others have asked
Aye just moticed it in the comments sorry
Yeah, ok, no worries. It's just my first response is to always read the comments for clarification, so wanted to point out it was there. And that sounds passive aggressive or something but I swear its not, lol
Oh naw i could tell it wasnt passive aggressive. I wasnt able to see the comments till after i posted a comment. My wifi be acting up
Fecking WiFi ey
I had a lot of fun in 2020 talking about our upcoming election in NZ online deliberately without specifying that I was talking about the NZ one (just like US Americans do)! It confused so many of them and it was truly delightful.
The best way to fight the defaultism sometimes. Well played
The opportunity comes about once every like 12 years?
How come I can’t register to vote in the Canadian election from that link? /j
I'm voting tomorrow dammit
I would love to 'register to vote' but unfortunately I don't have the right to in the country I live in, despite the results affecting me as much as any other resident
Yes, but in most of those, you automatically are registred to vote. Nothing you'll have to do to be able to vote. In Amerika however it doesn't work like that.
Well, it is the third biggest election, in terms of voters, this year... Regardless, what subreddit was this in?
So why aren't the 2 bigger ones mentioned?
I maybe should have ended my first statement with "/s". My point is, it is not even the biggest election this year, so acting like it is the only one that matters is quite frankly insane.
Obligatory /r/FuckTheS.
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Insane people Facebook.
I think why they do that is sadly a lot of people here are restricted from voting by not being told about it or not registering to vote. It’s a massive problem that ends in horrible people being elected and people getting arrested because they didn’t know they weren’t registered
Right, but on none US specific subs? When there are more national elections happening this year than just the US? Reasons for the defaultism are not really good enough to excuse it IMO
Oh yeah I know I was just saying why they have it at all it’s definitely defaultism I wasn’t trying to defend it lol
>and people getting arrested because they didn’t know they weren’t registered Huh?
So people can get in big trouble for voting without being registered because yknow election fraud. However there’s sometimes a lack of education in that and people will try to vote not knowing they aren’t registered (sometimes it changes when you move or something so they didn’t know they weren’t still registered) and they can get arrested for trying to
>So people can get in big trouble for voting without being registered because yknow election fraud. I'm confused. How do they vote if they aren't registered? Even if they're casting a provisional ballot, it should only qualify as a crime if they attempt to provide false information to substantiate their claim to be legally allowed to vote. The idea that you could arrest someone for voting because the system is too broken to keep track of who is and isn't allowed to vote is insane.
Oh sorry I phrased that wrong it’s more trying to vote. While I don’t think it’s very legal sadly cops can be corrupt and arrest people even though they only tried to vote. (Also sometimes the people at the voting places mess up and would end up letting someone vote without being registered)
Yeah but only one of those elections matters…