4 ms·

> The state already knows John Jones, born 1st January 1970, is eligible to vote It actually does not know this. This is a very hard problem to solve in the US

> The state already knows John Jones, born 1st January 1970, is eligible to vote It actually does not know this. This is a very hard problem to solve in the US. There can be positive evidence of this (John Jones has been a resident of California since birth, has a birth certificate (state document) and a Social Security (federal) number reflecting that), but John Jones may have been born in PA with no Social Security number or birth certificate at all and be a current resident of California, having moved there last year, and a perfectly legitimate US citizen eligible to vote in California for local, state, and federal offices. There is no national US citizen registry, mostly for historical reasons, and making one is a total political nonstarter. Further, states are individually responsible for determining if someone is probably an eligible voter, and so there’s different processes and checks in place depending on the state.

mijamo 5y ago
What about for taxes? The UD has a reputation of being pretty good at tracking their citizens even outside the US to get their taxes.
- munk-a 5y ago
  All US tax payers have a tax payer ID - attempting to use that for anything else would likely be shut down really quickly by republicans.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > All US tax payers have a tax payer ID - attempting to use that for anything else would likely be shut down really quickly by republicans. For most taxpayers, that's the SSN, and its widely used for other purposes. Republicans mostly seem to have a problem when people point out that their incompetence is causing them to leak publicly, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867562
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I believe (though I'm not totally certain) that the tax payer ID is actually always distinct - most domestic tax filing is done with SSN though and then translated to the tax payer ID. The context here is that my spouse is non-American and had to acquire a tax payer ID when we were married.
      - pseudalopex 5y ago
        "A Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) is an identification number used by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the administration of tax laws. It is issued either by the Social Security Administration (SSA) or by the IRS. A Social Security number (SSN) is issued by the SSA whereas all other TINs are issued by the IRS."[1] [1] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayer-identification-numbers-tin https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxp...
        munk-a 5y ago
        Oh neat TIL - thanks!
- Amezarak 5y ago
  The IRS doesn’t actually know - it trusts you to report your status accurately. Of course, they could demand proof during an audit, I suppose, but “proof” can get fuzzy. But on top of that, not everyone, not even every adult, is required to file taxes. People can and do live their whole lives never filing taxes. So, “this person has never filed a return” is not proof of anything. It also doesn’t share this information anyway - US agencies are not big on sharing and in the case of the IRS, there’s privacy reasons. But of course, if you tell the IRS you’re a citizen and you file taxes ten years in a row, they might have questions if you suddenly stop. :) Here are the voter registration requirements in New Hampshire, to pick a state out at random, for example: https://sos.nh.gov/media/nbhlz4bt/registering-to-vote-in-new-hampshire-oct2021.pdf https://sos.nh.gov/media/nbhlz4bt/registering-to-vote-in-new... You can literal simply pinky swear and sign a document in front of an election official at your voting place and time that you are an eligible voter to register, and then go vote. They have no practical way of truly verifying what you say in most cases. There are legitimate edge cases that need this, so that’s why things work this way.
InitialLastName 5y ago
> Further, states are individually responsible for determining if someone is probably an eligible voter, and so there’s different processes and checks in place depending on the state. It's more fundamental than that: states are individually responsible for determining who the eligible voters are. There are variations from state to state as to the terms of residency in the state, whether felons or people who have been declared mentally incapacitated [0]. That, among other things, causes a substantial difficulty in attempts to (say) conform presidential elections to the national popular vote outcome; one of the functions of the electoral college is to (mostly in a very nonlinear binary fashion) normalize the results by state to the total population rather than simply the enfranchised population (hence the 3/5ths rule being a compromise between "count the slaves" and "don't count the slaves" in the weighting process). [0] https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-rules/ https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-rules/

mijamo 5y ago

What about for taxes? The UD has a reputation of being pretty good at tracking their citizens even outside the US to get their taxes.

munk-a 5y ago
All US tax payers have a tax payer ID - attempting to use that for anything else would likely be shut down really quickly by republicans.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > All US tax payers have a tax payer ID - attempting to use that for anything else would likely be shut down really quickly by republicans. For most taxpayers, that's the SSN, and its widely used for other purposes. Republicans mostly seem to have a problem when people point out that their incompetence is causing them to leak publicly, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28867562
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I believe (though I'm not totally certain) that the tax payer ID is actually always distinct - most domestic tax filing is done with SSN though and then translated to the tax payer ID. The context here is that my spouse is non-American and had to acquire a tax payer ID when we were married.
    - pseudalopex 5y ago
      "A Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) is an identification number used by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the administration of tax laws. It is issued either by the Social Security Administration (SSA) or by the IRS. A Social Security number (SSN) is issued by the SSA whereas all other TINs are issued by the IRS."[1] [1] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayer-identification-numbers-tin https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxp...
      - munk-a 5y ago
        Oh neat TIL - thanks!
Amezarak 5y ago
The IRS doesn’t actually know - it trusts you to report your status accurately. Of course, they could demand proof during an audit, I suppose, but “proof” can get fuzzy. But on top of that, not everyone, not even every adult, is required to file taxes. People can and do live their whole lives never filing taxes. So, “this person has never filed a return” is not proof of anything. It also doesn’t share this information anyway - US agencies are not big on sharing and in the case of the IRS, there’s privacy reasons. But of course, if you tell the IRS you’re a citizen and you file taxes ten years in a row, they might have questions if you suddenly stop. :) Here are the voter registration requirements in New Hampshire, to pick a state out at random, for example: https://sos.nh.gov/media/nbhlz4bt/registering-to-vote-in-new-hampshire-oct2021.pdf https://sos.nh.gov/media/nbhlz4bt/registering-to-vote-in-new... You can literal simply pinky swear and sign a document in front of an election official at your voting place and time that you are an eligible voter to register, and then go vote. They have no practical way of truly verifying what you say in most cases. There are legitimate edge cases that need this, so that’s why things work this way.

InitialLastName 5y ago

> Further, states are individually responsible for determining if someone is probably an eligible voter, and so there’s different processes and checks in place depending on the state. It's more fundamental than that: states are individually responsible for determining who the eligible voters are. There are variations from state to state as to the terms of residency in the state, whether felons or people who have been declared mentally incapacitated [0]. That, among other things, causes a substantial difficulty in attempts to (say) conform presidential elections to the national popular vote outcome; one of the functions of the electoral college is to (mostly in a very nonlinear binary fashion) normalize the results by state to the total population rather than simply the enfranchised population (hence the 3/5ths rule being a compromise between "count the slaves" and "don't count the slaves" in the weighting process). [0] https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-rules/ https://www.vote.org/voter-registration-rules/