Explain Like I'm 5 (ELI5)

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ELI5 why do people in USA need to register to vote? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 month ago by verstra@programming.dev to c/eli5@lemmy.world

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I'd expect the state to have a list of all its citizens and their basic personal info (age) which could be used to determine their eligibility for voting. In my country, we get a "invitation" to the vote, with your voter station and info on how to change it.

Instead, I'm seeing posts about USA's "voter rolls", which are sometimes purged, which prevents people from voting. Isn't this an attack on the voting system and democracy itself?

So why doesn't USA have a list of voters? Are they stupid?

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[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

In cases like that for us, I think there’s some sort of provisional voting where you cast your ballot but it’s not counted until everything checks out. In your example, perhaps they’d confirm you moved and make sure you only voted in the one location. It’s not something they can do immediately though. However I’ve never had reason to find out the details on this so I may be a bit off base