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It's September 5th!
Hey US people, please remember to check your voter registration every *5th* between now and November!
July 5th August 5th September 5th
October 5th November 5th
Check your voter registration for free online here:
You can also request your mail in ballot, so that you don't have to stand in line for hours or miss work on voting day.
Why check every month? Because some of y'all have been de-registered.
Re-register!
@mekkaokereke I’m in Finland. Everyone is automatically registered to vote the moment they turn 18. As long as they are alive and citizens, they are never “deregistered”. When elections roll around, everyone is mailed information and instructions about the elections, as well as all needed paperwork in case people want to vote in advance.
@Janne_O @mekkaokereke same in Germany - it’s seems so strange to me how the US is doing it. We also vote on work free days so everyone has the chance to go.
@paul @Janne_O @mekkaokereke The USA is 50 individual states with a federal government that has limited powers (the biggest perhaps being national sovereignty in foreign relations). In terms of things like voting, you need to compare the USA to the EU, not an individual nation-state like Germany.
Is this a smart way to handle voting? Absolutely not. But unless we rewrite our entire constitution with a constitutional convention or a bunch of constitutional amendments, that’s the system we have.
@bhawthorne @janneoksanen @mekkaokereke Germany is made up of 16 states and we are also a federal government. Not the same as in the US but I don’t think your comparison with the EU is completely accurate.
I also get why it made sense historically but today it does seems strange to an outside perspective but I get it is hard / nearly impossible to change.
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io@paul @bhawthorne @janneoksanen
Racism. The only reason the US clings to this foolishness, is racism.
It's not that hard to organize Federal elections. The us having 50 states is not a real obstacle.
It's intentionally made more complicated for "states rights" until you ask the obvious question, "States' right to do what?" The answer is almost always, "To be way more racist to Black people than the federal government allows."
@mekkaokereke @bhawthorne @janneoksanen yes that is also how it looks to me. Please correct me if I am mistaken but from what I understand the way the US votes might have made sense when it was founded to simplify the process? But the only way to keep it and make things like Gerrymandering possible in todays age seems to be indeed racism. I also don’t see how organizing voting on a federal level would in any way take rights of states to govern besides for doing the things you mention.
@paul @mekkaokereke @bhawthorne @janneoksanen White-supremacist racism in United States elections was literally written into the original United States Constitution.
There have been amendments and legislation to address that, which white supremacists keep opposing.
@paul @mekkaokereke @bhawthorne @janneoksanen From what I understand, one of the big reasons the system was set up like this initially was the Three-Fifth Compromise.
Once you know _that_ part of American history, a lot of the peculiar weirdnesses in the American election system start making sense.
@mekkaokereke @paul @bhawthorne @janneoksanen why don't states have the right to override the constitution and just complete the set? Not trying to give anyone any bad ideas, but how long until tfg starts saying this too?
@mlohbihler @mekkaokereke @paul @bhawthorne @janneoksanen Because of the supremacy clause. States can legislate above and beyond federal legislation, but not against it.