In Canada if your 18 you can vote,there is no registration.

[Swede]

The government uses income tax returns (there is a box on the returns that you check),and other government agencies to update the register. About a month before the election a couple of elderly people knock on your door and ask if everyone over 18 at this address is on the Register. They also ask if you know of anyone who might not be on the Register.
I wonder why you guys in the US have to register?


http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=faq&document=faqvoting&lang=e&textonly=false

[xray s]

1. Why?

To surpress the turnout.

[Maple]

2. Not only register

but list yourself as a Republican or Democrat!

I'd rip the ears off anyone who asked me to register what party I am!

What party I vote for is between me and the pencil in the polling booth!

[Ravenseye]

5. You don't have to choose...

you can list yourself as independent, or libertarian, or green or a number of other parties, you're not forced to choose one or the other.

[Maple]

10. Why should you have to list

anything at all?

Whose business is THAT??

[Vickers]

12. In Florida, it lists your RACE on your voter ID card

Seriously.

[Maple]

15. Oh you're kidding !!!

Gott im himmel...the UPROAR that would cause in Canada...even the suggestion of a hint of an idea of a passing thought!

We could be talking lynching here!

What the frick does THAT have to do with anything???

[Ravenseye]

18. So They Know Who To Remove From the Voter Rolls. (nt)

[Vickers]

19. Yup, somebody posted it here one night, I checked, it's true

Freaked me out.

It wasn't until that moment that I *really* knew that the Republicans are evil.

They scan the voter rolls and compare against similar names of felons and ex-cons from all 50 states to weed out black folks, simple as that.

[Maple]

23. Well in Canada even prisoners can vote

We are all citizens.

And it prevents any ...ahem...political imprisonments with an eye to squelching a political movement or popular leader.

Over 18, citizen of Canada...only requirements.

[Ravenseye]

20. Actually as an Aside...

...I was once asked by a lady at the Registry of Motor Vehicles when I was getting a new liscence a bunch of questions...height, weight, etc...then asked

'Race'

I replied

'Human'

She got a big laugh out of that, but forced me to pick one from the list.

[Maple]

25. Again...I am amazed by this

We all have photo ID for licenses and healthcare and so on...but race is never questioned...and you can't tell by photos. Has nothing to do with getting a license

Gawd knows, I look like Ma Barker in my photo. :D

[Ravenseye]

17. Thats what Independent is...

It's not a party. It's saying, I'm not part of a party. It used to be listed as 'non-partisan' but was switched sometime in the 90's to read 'Independent'.

When you register as an 'Independent' you're saying you're not part of a policial party.

Now if you're saying, whose business is it to know whether you're non-partisan, or part of a party...I think it's mostly for the parties themselves, so they can send literature, and hit people up for money who say they're Dem or whatever.

[Maple]

22. I'd tell any party who depended on that listing

to stick their brochures in their nearest orifice!

Nobodies business but mine.

I can take out a party membership if I choose to do so, but Elections Canada has no business knowing about my political beliefs.

People here often change their votes depending on the issues...who the hell votes the same party all their life?

[TahitiNut]

24. In many/most states, "Independent" is a party affiliation,

Delaware, for example, has the Independent Party of Delaware.
In many states, it means The American Independent Party

In most states, voters who wish to declare no party affiliation are advised to enter "no party" or leave that box blank.

[harmonyguy]

26. I believe that it has to do with Primaries.

As I understand it your 'elections folks' in each county have dubious honour of conducting the primaries for each party. Up here in Canada, each party is responsible for running their own 'candidate selection' elections at the local level. With a few hotly debated exceptions, each party's 'Riding Association' holds its own nominations and a candidate is decided upon. Those people who choose to belong to a particular Riding Association, get to vote in that party's nomination meeting.

No governmental body has anything to do with THOSE elections, and no-one has to declare their party preference. Even at the point of arriving at the pools and obtaining your paper ballot, you don't have to declare a preference.

It's clean, simple and everyone's home in a couple of hours.
HG

[Columbia]

7. Why not just put Decline to State

[wysi]

3. Reason # 435234234...

... why Canada is better.

[Ravenseye]

8. Reason # 1 I'm guessing is Hockey right?

Can you believe my friends went to Toronto this weekend and didn't go to the Hockey Hall of Fame?!?

[HEyHEY]

9. WHat? What a dope!

I love that place

[wysi]

11. Hockey...

... is at least the top 100 reasons!

I've been to TO once... and one of my first stops was the Hockey Hall of Fame. I spent about four hours there, it was fantastic.

[Ravenseye]

16. Seriously...

...All they did was walk around, shop, go to restaurants...they didn't even go up the CN Tower or anything.

He was telling me about the movie they rented in their hotel room and I had to stop him and yell at him. "You had time for a movie in your hotel room but not enough time for the hall of fame???"

[Placebo]

4. Well it's no secret...

that the politicians don't WANT you to vote.

If they wanted you to vote, they would have polls open 24/7 for a week straight with no registration.

[ochazuke]

6. Because that would be too easy.

Look at the resistance to moter-voter. Anti-Democratic forces in the U.S. (The GOP) want to keep public participation down.

But you already knew that.

[yvr girl]

14. Canada makes it easy

All registered voters are mailed a card with their name and address on it. It tells them what polling station to go to, even the specific poll. When you go to vote, you bring the card and you are directed to the right station

Elections Canada runs ads during the campaign - if you haven't received your registration card by now, call xxx. You can still vote without your card, but you need ID and you have to go through a different line-up.

[GainesT1958]

13. It's done by the individual states here...

And, yes, it was originally put in place that way to make certain only those who could read and write--i.e, usually the "educated", which of course in the late 18th/early 19th Centuries meant the well-to-do--could vote. Expanding voting rights here has been a long, arduous, and piecemeal process. We've had to deal with things like litteracy tests (to prevent African-Americans, hispanics and poor whites from voting), "grandfather clauses" (also from the Jim Crow era), and other technicalities used to keep voting numbers down. In this part of the country (the South), it was done not only for segregation, but to keep poor whites "in line" and to facilitate the well-off to vote for the most conservative Democrat in the primaries (where the REAL election battle was fought in the old days).

Nowadays, voter intimidation and finaggling is usually done here, as elsewhere, by the Repubs--who know lower turnout helps them. So many right-wingers here have always asserted that voting is "a priviledge, not a right", while those of us on the progressive end of things come back at them that voting is, indeed, a priviledge--AND a right! Florida 2000 just demonstrated to us anew that we can never let our guard down, else a coup in America is truly possible.

I've always been impressed, frankly, with how you all in Canada vote only with paper, marked ballots--and every vote in every "Riding" is always counted, apparently with no real trouble at the counting of the ballots. No butterflies, and no hanging chads. Wish to goodness we had the sense to do that here--and to be able to trust everyone involved with an honest, and accurate, count.

B-)

[yvr girl]

21. It does seem insane to me that a federal election is not handled federally

The process is uniform across the country. The paper ballots seem to work fine here. They don't seem to slow down the results that much. It is also pretty transparent. Candidates can send scrutineers to each poll to observe the vote. The votes are counted in front of the same scrutineers. There are automatic recounts in very close elections.