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by jahaja 2213 days ago
Why do people even need to register to vote? In Sweden every eligible voter receive their "voting card" by mail a couple of weeks before an election.
3 comments

There's no common official record on where someone lives in the US, as well as many other countries in the anglosphere. You don't officially register at an address when you move there, although updating drivers licenses which are state issued are sometimes optionally connected to voter registrations (which are often county or municipality-managed).
> There's no common official record on where someone lives in the US

When a US colleague transferred from our US office to our European office they were surprised and a little shocked that they were required to register their address with the local authorities. They felt that the government had no right to know where they lived.

For me, as a European, I was quite surprised about the opposite. How is it possible to have a functioning government without proper records about who lives where?

Only after the realization that the US does not keep records about who lives where did things like voter registration make sense to me.

Same in Germany, always astonished about the US system.
You still have to register in Australia, too, even if it is compulsory to vote.