Post BAGIQsTnps9zAXGXcu by futurebird@sauropods.win
 (DIR) More posts by futurebird@sauropods.win
 (DIR) Post #BAGHzhYqK5zhUDfH2u by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
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       @futurebird both in Germany and in Russia (and in Spain too I think?) voting process relies on mandatory registration. That is, in all three countries you're forced by law to go to the officials and declare your current address within some reasonably short time after moving in (typically a couple of weeks or so) and provide some paperwork (e.g. a letter from your landlord in Germany, or landlord visiting the officials with you in person in Russia), and then get your new address both entered into the governmental systems and into your passport/ID.Both in Russia and in Germany, voter registration is done automatically and in advance from the data from these systems. I'm not sure about Germany, but in Russia, even if for some reason you're not on the voter rolls when you come to vote (e.g. because of clerical error or because you moved in too recently), they write you in if the stamp in your passport is for the address covered by this polling station. On the contrary, in Russia, even if you're on the voter rolls, you will get rejected a ballot (and your entry, crossed out) if you come to the polling station when the stamp in your passport is not for the address in the voter rolls (but if it is for another address covered by this polling station, you'll get written in).That's a good and efficient system for voting, but also I'm not sure I like it because this means the government always knows where you live, and I don't really trust the government.
       
 (DIR) Post #BAGIQsTnps9zAXGXcu by futurebird@sauropods.win
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       @IngaLovinde Technically we kind of had freedom from the government always knowing where you lived in the US but I think functionally that is vanishing.
       
 (DIR) Post #BAGiCmZFcMB7aRkmTw by IngaLovinde@embracing.space
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       @futurebird also I should add that in Russia, at least until recently, we didn't have such things as postal voting or advance voting or online voting. Until ~2020, the voting only used to be done in person at the polling station in the election day (or, as an exception for the disabled people, by voting station officials driving to their homes with the sealed ballot box by advance applications, with at most 1% of the total votes contributed by them).Some of these things appeared recently and are widely considered to be tools facilitating electoral fraud (by the government colluding with election officials), after all the previous tools of electoral fraud (such as ballot stuffing or fraudulent vote tallies) proved to be too weak against high enough numbers of highly enough motivated independent observers.