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Not really. You can easily move without informing the new state. Millions of college students do it every year. The last move I made was in September so I hadn

Not really. You can easily move without informing the new state. Millions of college students do it every year. The last move I made was in September so I hadn't changed licenses or filed income taxes yet, so they had no awareness of me yet. Luckily I'm in a fairly permissive state and was able to register with a couple utility bills without any hassle. Some sort of voter registration is a necessity when you can move 3000 miles in a weekend. Unfortunately it's often used to disenfranchise voters, but a significant subset of the population does not have up-to-date records. Registration is a way to fix that.

maxerickson 7y ago
So the utility bills are sufficient to jump through the hoops before the fact but not at the time of voting?
swsieber 7y ago
You can still do it automatically for a majority of voters though. Having to register should be the exception, not the norm.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Not everyone is eligible to vote. Heck, I had to correct my wife’s driver license application because she definitely isn’t a citizen, and the question was phrased to be very confusing....
- tathougies 7y ago
  Sure, it's done automatically when you apply for a driver's license or change your registration, by the Motor Voter Act. Registering to vote is incredibly easy if you keep your state documents up-to-date. We just moved states. When we got our driver's license, we checked a box to change our voting record. We received in the next week a letter from our old county asking us if we did indeed move and if we should be removed from their voter roll, as well as a letter from our new county informing us we will be voting there from now on. But... driver's licenses or state IDs aren't the end all be all. If I keep real property in another state, I could potentially qualify for a license or state ID there as well, but that state would not be my main residence and I could not be a citizen of that state unless I actually intended to move there permanently. If I lived a more transient life, I would be able to freely choose which state I wanted to be a citizen of. Like if I spend 73 days exactly in each of five states and received mail there, then I would be able to choose which state to register in. There's no way for states to know or to control my movement without imposing arbitrary and illegal restrictions.

maxerickson 7y ago

So the utility bills are sufficient to jump through the hoops before the fact but not at the time of voting?

swsieber 7y ago

You can still do it automatically for a majority of voters though. Having to register should be the exception, not the norm.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Not everyone is eligible to vote. Heck, I had to correct my wife’s driver license application because she definitely isn’t a citizen, and the question was phrased to be very confusing....
tathougies 7y ago
Sure, it's done automatically when you apply for a driver's license or change your registration, by the Motor Voter Act. Registering to vote is incredibly easy if you keep your state documents up-to-date. We just moved states. When we got our driver's license, we checked a box to change our voting record. We received in the next week a letter from our old county asking us if we did indeed move and if we should be removed from their voter roll, as well as a letter from our new county informing us we will be voting there from now on. But... driver's licenses or state IDs aren't the end all be all. If I keep real property in another state, I could potentially qualify for a license or state ID there as well, but that state would not be my main residence and I could not be a citizen of that state unless I actually intended to move there permanently. If I lived a more transient life, I would be able to freely choose which state I wanted to be a citizen of. Like if I spend 73 days exactly in each of five states and received mail there, then I would be able to choose which state to register in. There's no way for states to know or to control my movement without imposing arbitrary and illegal restrictions.