Purges: A Growing Threat to the Right to Vote | Hacker News Reader

Purges: A Growing Threat to the Right to Vote

brennancenter.org

64 pointscmurf19 comments

In the UK we have an annual poll of the local population where you have to register to vote - and have had since 1832. So the entire list is purged every year and built anew in each local area. As it's an annual ritual, you get into the habit of registering to vote where you live this year - if indeed you want to be registered for a vote. The form turns up about October time so the register can be built for the elections the following May.

In the US, we have a long history of suppressing minority votes by purging voters from the voting list. Do you have that sort of history in the UK?

> if indeed you want to be registered for a vote.

In theory registering is compulsory, and there are penalties for not registering.

Being erroneously deregistered does not mean you can't vote. It means that you cast a provisional ballot that has full effect once your eligibility is verified. It's more of a burden on the precinct workers than the voter.

Being erroneously deregistered makes it harder to vote.

When something gets harder, some percentage of people don't do it.

Purges are being applied in a way that disproportionately impacts demographics likely to vote for Democrats, by Republican state legislatures.

There is absolutely no evidence to support the premise that voter fraud is anywhere near the order of magnitude needed to make a difference in elections. It is a non-problem.

Draw your own conclusions.

> Being erroneously deregistered does not mean you can't vote.

It does mean you won't get a voter guide, sample ballot, and information on your voting location sent to you; for elections that don't get a lot of media attention (off-year local primaries, for instance) you may not even be aware there is an election, much less who the candidates/ballot issues are.

If you don't think all that affects your practical ability to vote (and to cast an informed vote), ask yourself what is the purpose for which that information is sent to registered voters?

  affects your practical ability to vote

It doesn't affect your ability to vote at all. There are far more severe impairments that go totally unaddressed. Mail theft is extremely common in my area, so much so that everything but junk mail goes to a PO Box.

All voter guides and sample ballots (in all supported languages) are available at the polling place. Polling places rarely change for a given precinct (mine is unchanged in 24+ years), and you can't get into the neighborhood without passing signs for the polling place from 48 hours before the election.

One would have to live a highly insulated life for the only (or even first) tipoff of an upcoming election to be the mailed information booklet. Slate mailers outnumber the official materials probably 40:1.

In Poland to be removed from voting list you have to be officially dead. You may deregister in order to vote somewhere else but you have to do it by yourself. You don't have birth/death registers?

illegals can now vote in san francisco, lets stop pretending this is sacred

[Citation needed]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/san-francisco-a...

That article is about local school board elections, not state or national elections.

Fun fact: In the EU, anyone who's an EU citizen can vote in local elections wherever they live, even if they aren't a citizen of the country they're in.

Local elections are quite different from state/province and national elections.

... and to expand on that point a little, local elections can do pretty much whatever they want, including electing a dog as mayor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/08/13/mi...

That article is so confused that I’d be careful taking any of it at face value. For one thing there certainly is not anyone named Adam Putnam running as the Republican candidate for Governor of California.

That’s an editorial goof, not a fake person. He’s running as a Republican for the governor of Florida.

It’s not just a goof, it’s the entire hook of the article and it’s repeated twice. And although not pedantically wrong, the description of Putnam as the GOP candidate for governor is highly misleading. He’s running in the primary for the nomination and he’s not the favorite.

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