Make Voter Registration Compulsory

First published: 26^th January 2012

Why not make voter registration a compulsory, annual event? Deliver a form to each unit, and require the head of the household to complete it accurately. Reporting a change of address could be made optional, because it will be updated during the next annual registration, relieving the worry of forgetting to re-register during the chaos of a move. This would make fraud more difficult and risky. An individual wanting to register in a different location would have to collude with the head of the household of their actual address (so they are not registered twice) and the head of the household of their supposed address. Anyone wanting to organise large-scale fraud would need to involve a lot more people, increasing the costs, and the risk that someone would be able to identify the mastermind. The recent investigations have only netted the small fry.