Citizen Linus [LWN.net]

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 13:21 UTC (Tue) by rbetts@gweep.net (subscriber, #21779) [Link] (5 responses)

In the US, one enlists themselves to the eligible voter list at their primary residence. This can be done by visiting your town/city/county offices, or, by federal law, can be done when applying for a drivers license. In most states, one registers as a party member, or as unaffiliated.

Election ballots are combinations of city/town, county, state and federal offices. There are a *lot* of elected officials in the US.

Political parties play a substantial role in organizing and executing elections (and in organizing the affairs of constitutional bodies - which are often not specified in any great detail constitutionally or legislatively). For an example specific to elections, in most states, political parties are responsible for nominating and supplying poll workers. Our parties certainly look raucous and crazy from afar (and they are), but they have many practical responsibilities which might be harder to notice at a distance.

In Finland, if you receive a paper that allows you to vote, how does the paper-issuer know which address to send the paper to (if you have more than one residence). Or, in general, how does the issuer know where you live to send even a single paper? Or how many eligible residents there at each dwelling? It seems some registration somewhere must be necessary to issue accurate voting permits.

I apologize for the off-topic comment - I'm proud to be a US citizen and hopefully sharing a few simple details might offset in some gentle way the ugly name calling that occurs above..

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 13:50 UTC (Tue) by damic (guest, #7275) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm Swedish and not Finish, but I guess Finland have a similar system as Sweden do.

In Sweden we have a Civil registry that is maintained by our Tax Agency so that they can tax you correct. That seems to always be the top priority of any government to get the taxes. :)

Anyway, since for taxation purposes we have a Civil registry that is also used when voting. It is kept up to date and when it it time to vote, the government simply runs a query in the register to get the name and address of everyone that is eligible to vote.

If we temporary move a short period we simply ask for our post to be forwarded to the temporary address (done on internet in a few minutes), and the same thing is also done when moving permanently.

I recently moved to México, I registered that with the Swedish tax-agency in order to not be taxed in Sweden. And 3 weeks ago I got my voting papers for the 19th of September election in Sweden sent to my México address, I went to the Swedish embassy in México with my ID and voted. The whole thing took a total of 3 minutes at the embassy.

Granted, Sweden only have around 9 million citizens, so I guess we can do things not possible in other bigger nations. But it is pretty convenient. :)

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 15, 2010 3:31 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Ah, but in the USA, there was a long-standing distrust of centralized databases of all sorts. My impression is that in recent decades this has mostly fizzled, but e.g., one of the objections to the original Social Security Act was its assignment of a unique number to every eligible individual. And we still have *separate* databases for voting, for taxes, for driver's licenses, for passports, for birth/death/marriage, and so on and so forth. (Mostly maintained by totally separate government agencies. E.g., I think I'm registered to vote in two different counties, because I never bothered to unregister when I moved, and they don't really check the lists against each other.)

Oh, and IIRC it's pretty much legal to just make up the name you want to use when registering for these databases.

The USA's ways of doing things are all very... historically contingent.

Electors

Posted Sep 14, 2010 21:53 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (2 responses)

To give you another example of a different system.

In Britain every residence gets sent paperwork about once a year, and in any case before a major election. The envelope has an address but no name, and insists you open it and not redirect it under any circumstances. Inside is a list of people who are currently registered at that address. If the list is fine you can fill out a web form, call a phone number, or send back the form with just a signature.

Otherwise you correct the list, removing anyone who is no longer living there and adding new people, then post it back. If an election is held the latest register is used, everybody who can vote is sent a card telling them about the election, and fractions of the list are sent to every district. You don't need the card to vote, you just tell the officials your name and address, they give you a ballot and write the number of the ballot next to your name on their list.

Lying on the form, or at the election itself, is possible, and clearly sometimes happens, but with turnout so low it's difficult to justify any system which would reduce participation further, e.g. requiring ID to vote (although this is done in Northern Ireland where vote fraud had become endemic).

Electors

Posted Sep 15, 2010 16:12 UTC (Wed) by sorpigal (guest, #36106) [Link] (1 responses)

How do they get a list of all addresses which are residences? Seems like someone would have to know ever building address in the country and whether or not someone lives there. P

Electors

Posted Sep 15, 2010 20:39 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The UK has taxes (e.g. council tax) which apply only to occupied residential properties. So, yes, the government does know where people live (and who lives where). It's known this for many decades, and so far has done nothing bad with the knowledge.

Voter registration

Posted Sep 14, 2010 13:23 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

The notion of "residency" in the US is rather fuzzier than it is in many other parts of the world; cities, for example, have no sort of list of who is resident there. So getting on the list of people who are entitled to vote in a given location requires registration.

Registration has seen as an obstacle to voting by some people, which why efforts have been made (on the Democratic side especially) to make registration easy. In a lot of places, it can be done simultaneously with getting a driver's license.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 13:26 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (3 responses)

It's only the first time after a move, etc. I have been registered for 25 years from the same address, no re-registration.

Personally, I think anyone who wants to vote should be able to, no ID, just dip a finger in indelible ink so you can't vote again. Even multiple voting wouldn't bother me much, since if everybody can multiply vote, that also would even out. I figure if an election is so close that either would make a difference, then it's pretty much a tossup anyway.

How does it work in Finland the first time -- does the government simply track people and know when they turn 18 (or whatever the voting age is)?

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 14:15 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't know about Finland, but in the UK, local authorities (at the borough / city / district level) are responsible for distributing electoral registration forms to every household in the area on an annual basis. It is a legal requirement for someone in the household to fill the form in accurately, listing all persons-entitled-to-vote (including those who will become entitled to vote some time in the next twelve months) in the household and return it to the local authority.

If you change address during the year, you're supposed to notify the relevant electoral registration officers in the place you move from and the place you move to; your registration is updated accordingly.

The electoral register is also used as the list of persons from which jury pools will be selected. Some persons eligible to vote are not eligible for jury service; there are tickyboxes on the form for purposes of indicating such persons.

In recent years, there's been a convenient innovation: the form is issued with last years details pre-printed. If there are no changes required, you can confirm your household's registration by phoning a certain telephone number and keying in the unique identifying number printed on the form. (You can also do this via a web site; a letter-based check code is additionally required in this case.)

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 15, 2010 19:30 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

And both the web site and the text service always return 'code invalid' (at least for me). Typical halfassed govt IT idocy.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 17:53 UTC (Tue) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link]

"How does it work in Finland the first time -- does the government simply track people and know when they turn 18 (or whatever the voting age is)?"

We have Local Register Offices that maintains databases of citizens. When you are born, you are registered in the database. If you move, you need to notify the Register Office of your new address. All in all, the process is quite seamless.

http://www.maistraatti.fi/en/

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 13:37 UTC (Tue) by fb (guest, #53265) [Link] (12 responses)

I guess that the US -unlike many European countries- does not have a centralized (multi purpose) database where each and every citizen needs to register its home address. So you need to register with the local "voting" office in advance, as well as several other independent offices to make use of their (public) services.

If you wish to have high turn out rates in elections you should make use of compulsory voting which will make loads of people show up even if the penalties are extremely low (e.g. in Brazil the fine costs as much as a local bus ticket, and elections always have at least 80% turn out).

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 14:59 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (11 responses)

If you wish to have high turn out rates in elections you should make use of compulsory voting

That's a bad idea. Forcing people to vote doesn't necessarily improve the quality of the decision. People should have the right to choose not to vote if they don't want to. Why make them go through the whole exercise just to spoil their ballot?

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 15:56 UTC (Tue) by fb (guest, #53265) [Link] (10 responses)

> That's a bad idea. Forcing people to vote doesn't necessarily improve the quality of the decision. People should have the right to choose not to vote if they don't want to. Why make them go through the whole exercise just to spoil their ballot?

Because it stimulates people to think about and to take part in political issues, and because it makes voter suppression a lot harder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression.

A person that -for any reason- choses not to vote can just go there and cast a "blank/null" vote.

There are plenty of good reasons for it,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting#Arguments_...

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 16:29 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (9 responses)

Because it stimulates people to think about and to take part in political issues

How do you know that? Maybe people just vote randomly to avoid the penalties.

it makes voter suppression a lot harder

Is voter suppression a real problem in the US? (It isn't in Canada, and I don't think it is nowadays in the US.)

There are plenty of good reasons for it,

The Wikipedia article gives plenty of reasons. I don't think they're all good reasons, though. Many of them are just assertions without any data to back them up.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 19:48 UTC (Tue) by deepfire (guest, #26138) [Link] (4 responses)

How do you know that? Maybe people just vote randomly to avoid the penalties.

Well, as the parent poster suggested, blank/null ballots remove the point of random voting in avoidance of penalties, and they still do provide meaningful input.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 15, 2010 16:18 UTC (Wed) by sorpigal (guest, #36106) [Link] (3 responses)

A blank ballot in a compulsory system provides the same input as a non-vote in a non-compulsory system, so there is no gain.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 16, 2010 14:34 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (2 responses)

On Brazil's electronic vote machines (voting is compulsory here, and almost all of it on these machines), there is even an explicit (and quite big, though all the buttons on these machines are big) "blank vote" button. You can also cast a null/invalid vote, but it is a bit more hidden; simply type any number which does not match a party or candidate (like "99" or "00") and it will be accepted as a null/invalid vote.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 16, 2010 18:24 UTC (Thu) by Velmont (guest, #46433) [Link] (1 responses)

Huh? Why would you ever want to do a null vote instead of a blank vote? I can't really see the difference here.

Anyway, I think mandatory voting is quite cool. And I hope lots would actually vote blank then, that would be a REAL kick in the ass of the politicians and the system.

Our system in Norway is quite good and democratic, although it's not good enough, it's too strategic (although not as much as some other countries *cough*UK *cough*US).

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 16, 2010 20:33 UTC (Thu) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]

> Why would you ever want to do a null vote instead of a blank vote?

No idea (other than the number of keypress "beeps" from the machine is then the same as a valid vote). I hear from time to time rumors that it makes a difference when counting the votes, but never saw any reliable information about whether its true or which difference it makes.

I think it was made that way because back when you had paper ballots you could either leave it blank or invalidate it (marking multiple candidates, for instance), and they wanted to keep the same possibilities on the electronic voting machines.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 23:06 UTC (Tue) by klbrun (subscriber, #45083) [Link]

The unbalanced enforcement of drug laws can be seen as a voter suppression strategy in the US, since convicts lose their right to vote (unless they get it reinstated by a judge after they have served their sentence). There are other examples. "Motor voter" in California got a lot of criticism from the right before it was enacted.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 14, 2010 23:13 UTC (Tue) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (2 responses)

If you look at all the countries with compulsory voting, the informal vote is quite low.

This year in Australia the informal vote was 1%, probably the highest ever, and that was because of an orchestrated campaign to vote informal, and because the two main parties were both shit.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 15, 2010 11:03 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

OK, but I still don't see any evidence that compulsory voting improves outcomes. I looked at the list of countries on Wikipedia that enforce compulsory voting, and by any measure I can think of (freedom index, human development, economic indexes, etc.) they don't seem to be better off than countries that don't enforce compulsory voting.

Citizen Linus

Posted Sep 16, 2010 18:26 UTC (Thu) by Velmont (guest, #46433) [Link]

Too bad. I would've thought the non-votes were much higher. OK, then it may be bad.