Can you explain all the fuzz about voter registration in the US to a European?

Some European countries operate a system of a permanent mandatory register of all citizens, which is also used for administering elections. I understand America does not have such a system in place, meaning there’s a need for a dedicated voter registration process.

My understanding of voter registration is - but maybe I’m wrong about what it actually entails - is as follows. People who wish to vote are required, with details governed by state law, to submit a registration form, together with documentation that proves their eligibility to vote (such as a birth certificate). You mail that to some agency by some defined deadline ahead of the election, and that’s it.

If that is what voter registration means, then I don’t understand the controvery this creates. Surely they can’t just let anybody vote who shows up at a polling station on election day, so some pre-screening of that sort is necessary and reasonable. I don’t see how such a process would be biased in favour of certain parties or candidates, since I would imagine everybody, rich or poor, to have documentation of that sort. Sure, it reduces spontaneous voting by people who made up their mind that they want to vote only after the registration deadline. But that’s about it, and I don’t see how this would hit a a particular party’s or candidate’s supporters disporportinatley more strongly than others. So where does this controversy come from?

The controversy is over requiring IDs to vote, and “motor-voter” registration.

“Motor-voter” means that whenever you register a car or get a license, you are offered the opportunity to register to vote. The wealthier you are, the more likely you are to have a car and a driver’s license, so the more likely you are to have this opportunity to register. It therefore discriminates against poor people.

Having to show an ID to vote is supposed to prevent fraud, but there is no evidence of fraud, not large-scale, or eve small-scale, so it’s a solution to a non-existent problem. It also discriminates against poor people, since acceptable IDs are state issued pictures IDs, meaning driver’s licenses, or state IDs that are not licenses, but are obtained from the same place you get a license (people who can’t drive for physical or medical reasons, or choose not to drive, get them); picture IDs from state universities; and US passports as well.

Poor people are less likely to be able to obtain any of these IDs. They are less likely to own cars and need licenses, to have difficulty getting to the department of motor vehicles to get a state ID, to go to college and have a university ID, or to be able to afford a passport.

The theory goes that poor people disproportionately vote Democrat, so Republicans pass these ID laws to eliminate Democratic voters.

I personally question a lot of this. In my state, poor people tend to be Christian, and therefore Republican, because many of them are single-issue voters on abortion. Also, in big cities, like NYC and LA, where you do get populations of poor people who are Democrats, they have little trouble getting state IDs, because public transportation is good in these places.

However, the fact that this is a solution without a problem is kind of a big deal to me. I hate extraneous legislation.

One issue that is dead in the water, though is the idea that these laws disenfranchise homeless people. Homeless people already have special problems. You need an address to register to vote, because you need to be in a district for representatives, state senators, sheriff, etc. So the idea that these laws discriminate against the homeless is a non-starter.

I’d like to offer some corrections.

“Motor Voter” is a nickname given to the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) that was passed into law in the mid 90’s. It is not in any way controversial as RivkahChaya described it. It requires States to give voters the option to register to vote at the time they renew their license to drive. It does not give any preferential treatment to drivers. In fact, it also requires states to allow registration by mail and at numerous other government agencies including public assistance. Prior to this law, many states required voters to register at only a limited number of special locations or with “Registrars”. NVRA was a big step forward, not backward by any measure.

As to the issue of homeless people, they are not required to have an address to vote. They do need to provide a location where they “live” to be assigned to districts. However, in a least the state that I am most familiar with, they are allowed to register with their mailing address set at “General Delivery”. I know from experience that many homeless people are able to get a voter ID even if they can’t get any other type of ID.

In America we politicize everything, voter registration and voter turnout is no different.

There are 2 major parties in the US, the democrats and the republicans. As a general rule of thumb, the democrats do better when voter turnout is higher. The republicans do better when turnout is lower. I’m not trying to turn this into a political thread, but you can’t understand why this is happening here unless you understand that. Trying to understand why this is an issue w/o discussing the politics behind it is like trying to understand biology w/o discussing evolution. People may not like it, but you can’t have an honest and informed discussion without it.

As a result, republicans on the state and federal level have passed many laws making it harder to vote:

[ul]
[li]Eliminating or restricting absentee voting[/li][li]Eliminating or restricting early voting[/li][li]Making voter registration more onerous[/li][li]Fighting same day or automatic registration[/li][li]Requiring IDs for voters[/li][li]Closing polling places so people have trouble getting to the polls to vote (and when they get there the lines are incredibly long)[/li][li]Constantly purging voter rolls so people have to reregister[/li][li]Allowing IDs that conservatives have (like gun registrations) to count as ID, but not allowing ID that democrats have (like college IDs)[/li][/ul]

Basically they are trying to create fewer voters, and trying to make it harder for the remaining voters to vote because some people who lean democratic are more likely to just give up the harder it is to vote (while republicans will still show up to vote no matter how hard you make it to vote).

It would be an easy fix, if the politicians in the US wanted an easy fix. But they do not, so it is an issue.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/02/02/3745296/major-voter-id-study/

American’s don’t ever reregister unless they move from the area they were previously in. That way, they are assured that they will be voting on issues related to the area they live in. They may also be required to reregister if they fail to vote in a major election.

If a person lives at the same address, never misses voting in major elections, then they remain registered. At least this is the way it is where I live.

Registering as a voter is voluntary in the UK. There was a TV campaign last week to persuade more people to register - no register = no vote.

People don’t register for all kinds of reasons: Some because they don’t want the government to know who they are, some because they are transitory and can’t be bothered and some because they are illegal. Students are often registered at their homes and don’t bother with postal votes. Elections get low turnouts anyway so MPs get voted in by a small minority of those eligible.

Because there is a legal limit on expenditure, elections in the UK do not get the same kind of wall to wall coverage that they do in the USA. Politicians do their best but the electorate is pretty apathetic in the main.

The Labour (left wing) party elected a radical leader. They are expected to take a drubbing in the forthcoming (May 5th) election of local councillors - even though he does not really have anything to do with them. I guess its like voting for a State governor with the opposite politics to the POTUS (or abstaining) because you don’t like him. Unlike the USA, the labour party can ditch their unpopular leader in the hope that things will improve by the time a General election comes around.

Sadly, this is not true for many citizens of the US - and getting that documentation can be amazingly difficult.

Really? You didn’t have to register when you turned 18, or when you first decided to vote? I did.

Why do you imagine that, exactly? It’s very obviously not true, and if everyone did have the documentation at hand there wouldn’t be a controversey in the first place.

Morgenstern said we don’t re-register unless we move or miss voting in a major election (although I think it’s two general elections). IOW , we don’t need to register before each election or every 10 years. My 75 year old mother has only registered once, because she has lived at the same address for over 60 years - I am sure there are countries were that wouldn’t be possible.

Most countries have some sort of national ID, but the U.S. does not. Many people do not have “valid” ID.

To give some idea of how politicized the voter ID requirement is, in Texas a concealed-gun carry permit is acceptable for voter ID! But a government-issued student ID card with photo is not. (Gun owners tend to vote Republican; students Democratic.)

The voter ID laws are just one deliberate obstacle. In the 2004 election, precincts in Republican-voting precincts had adequate voting machines and voting was quick. In many Democratic-leaning precincts there were too few machines and queue delays of up to six hours to vote! (Without that, it’s possible John Kerry would have defeated GWB.)

Perhaps the OP is referring to more recent controversies of registering to vote in primaries, not generals. In that case, OP, the issue is not Republican vs. Democrat, it’s “Establishment” vs. “Insurgent.”

I didn’t have to reregister when I turned 18.

To be fair, the concealed carry permit ID and proof-of-identity requirements far exceed those of voter registration, requiring much the same sorts of identification and being fingerprinted, etc…

Student IDs don’t necessarily have those same requirements. Presumably you had to show some of that stuff to register at the school, but I doubt that there’s any legislation mandating state schools to require the same sort of proof-of-identity that is required for voter registration.

In other words, concealed carry licenses have been proven to be equivalent in terms of identity documentation, while student IDs aren’t required to be equivalent, and therefore would have to either be blanket disqualified, or taken up on a case-by-case basis. I.e. UT’s might be ok, but Wharton County Junior College’s ID might not.

That’s a good, non-political explanation for the two.

Students’ residency is based upon where they lived when they were accepted to the school, and they’re expected to vote (often by absentee ballot) in their home state.

This is not true. While a student can register at their home address, they can if they prefer register to vote at their college address. It’s possible registering at your school address is part of or helpful in establishing residency for paying lower in-state tuition.

My sister didn’t have to reregister to vote in the primary here a few months ago, which surprised me because the last (only) time she voted was in the 2004 presidential election.

That’s not true, at all. Every state has its own PARTY primary rules, put in place by the parties themselves, not by the states. Each party can decide who besides the voters who are registered as for that party can vote in their primary. In California, for instance, if you are registered as an independent (Decline to State, in California), you may vote in the Democratic primary, but you can’t vote in the Republican primary.

There are also rules about how far in advance you have to be registered to vote, in order to qualify to vote in the primary. In New York, for example, you had to have been registered to vote as a particular party something like six months prior to the election. If you were registered previously as other than the party whose primary you wanted to vote in, you had to be changed to that party six months prior. If you had never registered to vote, or had moved to New York from another jurisdiction, then you could register sooner than that. The time limit is a state rule, not a party rule.

Another issue that’s currently in the news is party membership, for the primaries. As with everything in the US, every state is different in the details, but in general, each voter can only vote in at most one primary election. In some states (called “open primary” states), you just show up at your polling place on voting day and tell them which party’s ballot you want. In other states, you can only vote in a party’s primary if you’re officially a member of that party (closed primaries). Those state, in turn, have a variety of requirements for being officially a member of a party: In some of them, you can join a party on voting day (for much the same effect as an open primary). In others, you have to register for a party some time in advance (very far in advance, in the case of New York).

If by “six months” you mean three weeks, then yeah. The registration deadline for the primary was March 25th, for the election on April 19.

Different states also have widely-varying rules for how much latitude the parties have in running their own primaries, and who may or may not be permitted to participate in the same.