# I pit America for awful voting systems **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 21, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941 "2008-10-21T20:55:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/21 "2008-10-23T06:27:26Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > After you vote with a mechanical ballot, how do you make sure your vote is recorded properly? In response to **DianaG** , I was attempting to contrast electronic voting machines with ATMs, not with other methods of recording votes. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/22 "2008-10-23T06:28:09Z")
> [@Billdo](#): > > The problem with this is that in the U.S., people do not have a “registered address” or anything close to it. Many people have multiple addresses, either temporarily or permanently. Sure, but that’s only your trade off between security and freedom. You could easily make it a law saying that every citizen has to pick one place as official location of residence. There will be cries about socialism and big brother of course but it’s not as if it is impossible to do things the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![5-HT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/f19dbf/32.png) [@5-HT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5-HT)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/23 "2008-10-23T06:47:06Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Sure, but that’s only your trade off between security and freedom. You could easily make it a law saying that every citizen has to pick one place as official location of residence. > There will be cries about socialism and big brother of course but it’s not as if it is impossible to do things the other way around. We already do this. Here in Michigan(and I would imagine anywhere else with motor voter), you’re registered at whatever address is on your Drivers License. I don’t know how it works for people that don’t have licenses though. Those people I guess actually have to go somewhere to register to vote. I’ve always done it when I’m at the Sec of State office for Driver’s License things, so I’ve never really had to think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/24 "2008-10-23T10:21:54Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > There is no easy way to get millions of people to vote. There is no way at all to get every eligible person to vote. How should we punish them for not voting? Fines? Jail time? We can’t even get red light cameras right, imagine getting a fine for not voting. In Spain you don’t specifically register to vote. You register your permanent address, the address you’ll use to file your taxes, receive government benefits and communication and, yeah, vote. If you’re a national (or a national of an EU member country), over 18 and not disenfranchised by judicial order, then as soon as you register a permanent address you’re registered to vote; homeless people who have their wits about them can use “mail drop” adresses (not specifically set up places, just a place which they know will keep their mail if any is received). About a month before any election, every City Hall publishes “Census lists” indicating every person that comes up as an eligible voter in town, listed by lastname-based alphabetical order (Firstlasname Secondlastname, Firstname) and the Census sends cards to every person in their lists, indicating where do they have to go to vote. We’re as good at bureaucratic shit as anybody, but that process seems to be simpler than the one in the USA. If you haven’t done something like move between countries (which means a delay that’s ridiculous in this day and age), updating your registration takes ten days and, except for Census error corrections, you can update it up to one month before any election day. If your move hasn’t come through, your old registration is still valid so you can vote there (in person or by mail). It isn’t necessarily a better system, but I’d say that not being able to get your tax returns back is a pretty hefty penalty for not being registered… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/25 "2008-10-23T10:34:27Z")
Sorry, out of time: for people who have multiple homes, they choose one to be their “permanent address” (residencia). Everything else is a “temporary address” even if they are spending most of their physical time there (dirección). For people like me who are in one country but nationals of another EU member, and so have the right to vote in both (just not to emit two votes in the same election), you can either get each address registered with its country (what I’ve done) or get one registered with both (I’m not doing that because I’m self-employed in Spain and that requires a permanent address in Spain). When I registered in the UK, I had to indicate that I was a national of Spain and would only vote in the UK for “non-EU level” elections; they verify this with the Spanish Census. When I was in college, if I got a letter in my Catalonia addresses during the summer, it would sit there until September. If I got a letter in my Navarra adress during school terms, I’d be told about it and asked whether it should be forwarded, tossed on the pile or read by my parents next Saturday when I called home. So even if I’d been interested in voting in Catalonia, it was more practical to be registered “back home.” As for soldiers, they often use as their address of record that of a relative who won’t be going anywhere if they get deployed. ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/26 "2008-10-23T11:18:51Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > In response to **DianaG** , I was attempting to contrast electronic voting machines with ATMs, not with other methods of recording votes. But it’s not related to machine - you can make electronic voting system capable of tracking every single vote and machine that print you receipt with time, your ID and candidate you voted for. Only, you know, it will be no [secret ballot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot) anymore. Bulwark against state oppression and blah blah blah. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/27 "2008-10-23T14:44:48Z")
In Canada, you can tick off a box on your income tax return (or on your citizenship forms for new citizens) to have your name and address added to or updated on the national register of electors. Failing this, you can send the info to Elections Canada, or simply register or update your registration at the poll on voting day. You are required to provide proof of residence and proof of identity to be registered at the poll, but this is pretty simple - for example a homeless person without ID would provide a certification from a local shelter that he/she receives services there for proof of residence, and proof of identity can be a sworn identification by another registered voter. If already registered, you will receive a card in the mail a few weeks before the elction to advise of the time, date, and location of the regular and advanced polls (which you do not need to vote although it saves a couple of minutes in the process). You will need proof of identity at the poll (but see above). Unlike the US, however, Canada has both a Constitutional right to vote for (almost) every Canadian citizen aged 18 or older, and a central independant agency which runs the whole federal election process. (The head of this agency and his deputy are the only adult citizens who are legally prohibited from voting.) This both limits the barriers that can be placed on voter eligibility and pretty much removes partisan politics from any effect on the actual election process. I’ve been voting for almost 40 years and can’t remember any voting-related scandals in any federal election. Provincial/municipal voting is similar, and the agencies exchange data to keep the voter registers up to date. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/28 "2008-10-23T15:05:17Z")
> [@Billdo](#): > > The problem with this is that in the U.S., people do not have a “registered address” or anything close to it. Many people have multiple addresses, either temporarily or permanently. > > Two common examples would be university students and military service members. Both groups have their “hometowns” and their current addresses, and can legitimately consider either to be their primary address for voting purposes. For instance, if a soldier orignally from New York is stationed in Georgia, it wouldn’t be fair to require him to vote in Georgia as he may consider himself a New Yorker who is just temporarily out of state in service to his country. On the other hand, the soldier may have enlisted to get the hell out of New York, and may consider Georgia to be his new home (or perhaps his new home of the moment), and be much more interested in and informed about Georgia issues, so it wouldn’t be fair to prohibit him from voting in Georgia, particularly as he may be a career service member who hasn’t returned to New York in 20 years. > > There are plenty of more examples of people who, for whatever reason, don’t have a single permanent, registered or fixed address. Moreover, even people with a single residence may move, and there is no central (or really other) registry of where they live. I have known plenty of people who have moved to New York, but have not bothered to change their prior state drivers licenses until they expired, and even then have sometimes renewed them when they were back in their hometowns for the holidays and the like. Similarly, if there were some sort of registry like that, there would be plenty of people who would want to have registered addresses other than where they actually spent most of their time for reasons good, bad and neutral (how many people have we known who “officially” lived in one place but who actually spent every night with their girl/boyfriend). > > So, people in the U.S. get to register to vote voluntarily where they consider their residence to be. That means that there will always be questions of whether people are actually legitimate voters. There will likewise always be a balance between making it easy for potential voters to register so that every vote may be cast and making it difficult so that those with marginal claims to eligiblity in a particular district may be weeded out. [Sorted](http://aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote/Special_Category/Enrolment_with_no_fixed_address.htm). [QUOTE=the Australian Electoral Commission] Persons with no fixed address must enrol in the Division in which they were last entitled to enrolment. If they have not previously been entitled to enrolment they can enrol for the division in which their next of kin is enrolled, or, if there is no next of kin, the division in which they were born. Electors not born in Australia can enrol in the division with which they have the closest connection. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/29 "2008-10-23T16:09:29Z")
> [@5-HT](#): > > We already do this. Here in Michigan(and I would imagine anywhere else with motor voter), you’re registered at whatever address is on your Drivers License. I don’t know how it works for people that don’t have licenses though. Those people I guess actually have to go somewhere to register to vote. I’ve always done it when I’m at the Sec of State office for Driver’s License things, so I’ve never really had to think about it. Right, but lots of people don’t have Driver’s Licenses, and the uproar over the recent Voter ID Law is that many people don’t even have any kind of state issued ID at all. So many people have no address registered with the state at all whch could be used by an automatic registration process comparable to that used in other countries. Ed ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/30 "2008-10-23T16:15:51Z")
> [@puppygod](#): > > But it’s not related to machine - you can make electronic voting system capable of tracking every single vote and machine that print you receipt with time, your ID and candidate you voted for. Only, you know, it will be no [secret ballot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot) anymore. Bulwark against state oppression and blah blah blah. If you follow **TWDuke** ’s quotes back, the point was that people complain louder when our money is messed with than when our vote is messed with because we _can tell_ when our money’s messed with. Like you said, that state of affairs is necessary for a secret ballot, but it’s annoying to hear people try to equate the reliability of voting machines with ATMs. It’s not that we care more about money than our votes; it’s that we simply have to trust that our votes are counted, but we can verify our bank balances. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941/31 "2008-10-23T16:42:17Z")
I do not know how a paper receipt would help. If the results seemed wrong would they expect everyone to come back with them? What caused the awareness of the problem was the polling results. After voting polling is extremely reliable and is used world wide. The UN uses it to determine if elections around the world are legit. It works in every instance ,except now in the US. In 2004 ,I saw a mathematician who was setting up the polling. He explained what they did to make sure that the polling would be accurate. The quadrupled the people polled and chose areas that would assure them of getting it right. Yet ,we claim it was the polling that was wrong.The math man said the polling error chance was around zero. Yet it did not match again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-america-for-awful-voting-systems/468941.md?page=1)