Text 2608, 47 rader
Skriven 2010-01-06 07:43:18 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
   Kommentar till text 2575 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
Ärende: Voting customs
======================
Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Tuesday January 05 2010 at 12:23:

[To David Drummond]
RB>> I assume the reason why people have to register is because there is
RB>> no such thing as the European residence registration requirement...

RW> With representative government, what happens if you move out of your
RW> representative's area? Does that voting card come in the mail
RW> automatically too?

The voting card is sent to your registered place of residence, and as you're
legally required to register your residence within (I think) a couple of weeks
after moving, there's generally no problem. If there _is_ a glitch, you can
call the local city hall and ask them to send you the card, which they'll do
after establishing your authentication  - elections are generally
well-publicized here, so there's not much of a chance that you miss one due to
lack of information. You can often vote at the city hall anyway, so you can
just drop in and check if wou want.

Please also remember that German cities tend to be much smaller on a
geographical basis than American ones, so it's easier to just go to city hall
here than it might be in even a medium-sized American city.

As for "representative government", there's perhaps a misunderstanding here:
there's no really "personal" connection between you and "your representative"
in Germany and it's unheard of to "write to your congressman" here, although I
suppose you could. Representatives are selected on the basis of their records
and campaign promises, but then are mostly on their own.

If you're dissatisfied with legislation on the state or national level, you
would generally either write to the state governer (or the responsible cabinet
member), or in the case of national matters to the cabinet member, or to the
"Petition Committee", a group of representatives set up to handle and if
possible resolve complaints. You can also start a petition for the Committee
and ask others to join your petition: this often happens when unpopular or
invasive legislation has been passed.

When you move, "your" representative also changes (at least on the local and
perhaps the state level) automatically.

The system is considerably different from that in the States, but I hope I've
described it understandably.

Cheers, Bob

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