this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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If you want to migrate here legally, you will have to apply for permanent or temporary residency. You will be registered to vote (insofar as you would be eligible to cast them) as soon as you do.
So the difference in the US is if you move to a different voting area, there's nothing requiring you to report your location to the government, so they would have no way of knowing that you live there.
Nothing? So you don't have to, say, pay taxes?
Sure you pay taxes, but that doesnt always include telling the state where you live. Some states dont have income taxes relying instead on property taxes (which only applies if you own a home) and sales taxes (which arent affiliated with an address). Almost all states that have income taxes also have a minimum amount of money you have to make before you need to file taxes. If you work in the home or part time, there's a decent chance you dont have to file state taxes; they just pull money from your paycheck (if it's a legitimate job).
Additionally, voting and tax filing are typically 6-ish months apart, so if you've moved, the location won't be accurate.
Depends on to which level of government you are talking about.
If I have a job I'm paying federal income tax. Most states also have an income tax, but not all.
If I own property, I'm probably paying some sort of real estate tax to the state xand/or county. If I'm renting, probably not.
If, for example, I'm out of work and move back home with my parents, there may not be a clear government record of where I live. Because of how large the US is, that could be a move of 1000+ miles from my last legal residence (would be for me anyway)
Right, so the government needs to know the address of most people for taxation purposes.
So then why not register them to vote while they're at it?
(It's because they want to suppress the vote.)
Not a terrible idea.
It may work in a lot places, but may be more challenging in states that don't have a state income tax. At least in the US, voter registration is handled by the State government, not the Federal government.
We would also need to account for eligible voters who are not paying taxes, (like college students, who may be living out of state to go to school, but I think would normally be expected to vote at "home")
Well, considering it's quite a simple concept and has worked without problems in many places for many decades, I think we can exclude the possibility that it may be "challenging" (except insofar as it may be challenging to convince voters and politicians to do it).
I don't doubt that it works well in many places.
It would probably work well in many places in the US.
I was just thinking about places like Washing state that don't have a state income tax, so combining taxation and voter registration would not be as straight forward as other places.
For better or worse the US constitution gives authority over most elections issues to the states, which means that we don't have one national voting system. And because most states give big portions of how elections are run to their various countries, the voting experience can be very different in different parts of the the nation.
I assume that we can learn a lot from other places, but I'm not sure that everything that works for one country always scales to a population 5-10x larger.