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Comment by woofyman | Hacker News Reader

Flying isn't a constitutionally protected right. Voting is though. Should you be able to vote without registering?

Voter registration is an interesting scenario too, but there's more than what meets the surface: There are multiple rights to protect. We all have the right to vote. We also have the right that your vote is of equal weight to everyone else's vote. We must also be able to ensure that votes are anonymous, to protect people from being persecuted. Finally, we also have the right to a secure election that only allows citizens to vote.

In my opinion, voter registration is a reasonable regulation to protect everything I mentioned above, as long as it does not intimidate, discriminate, inconvenience, or harass citizens.

> as long as it does not intimidate, discriminate, inconvenience, or harass citizens

Historically, this is exactly what voter registration has been used for. You put it somewhere perpetually underfunded (especially in urban areas) like the DMV, and watch the results come in.

I don't disagree with the principle, but the current state of affairs makes it impossible to trust that voter registration laws are passed in good faith.

> We also have the right that your vote is of equal weight to everyone else's vote.

That's clearly not true, when the votes of California residents are worth significantly fewer electoral votes per capita than in any other state. Until the electoral college is replaced with a straight popular vote, we will never have the right to equally-weighted votes.

Flying is an interesting case, per the 5th amendment we have the freedom to travel (liberty). There are too many points to consider for an HN thread, but in general, I would propose flying as a reasonably protected right, but no-fly lists as a violation of that right because of the absolute lack of due process. There is plenty of room for reasonable and effective security measures, as long as they don't intimidate, discriminate, inconvenience, or harass citizens.

Should you be able to vote without registering?

Correct.

The US Govt and many others already maintain a complete list of all persons, living and dead, including useful attributes like citizenship, current address, age (aka eligibility to vote), in real-time.

Maintaining separate, duplicate, opt-in, haphazardly maintained, patchwork voter registration databases is wasteful, error-prone, and only serves the purpose of disenfranchising undesirables.

Maintain a single-unified opt-out, meticulously maintained, centralized voter registration database, is at risk for authoritarian abuse for cataloging and targeting people.

Why should Federal government care who lives in Florida, aside from a population estimate for the Electoral College? That's Florida's business.

> Should you be able to vote without registering?

Maybe. Maybe voter rolls should be some sort of bio-token that proofs your uniqueness and existence, and your approximate location (to determine local eligibility) but uses a pseudonym and is not connected to anything like your taxes, drivers license, etc.

Flying actually falls in a gray area... Considering you are "taxed" in essence for the TSA, to move between states... freedom of movement between states and all...

The TSA is, in principle, something voters have 'chosen' to put into place and could remove if they wished. Also there is no difference in the TSA 'tax' if you fly between states or within a state, so as such in has nothing to do with interstate travel.

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