Why would anyone be against registering to vote?

August 17, 2024 11:24 AM

I was at an event earlier today, helping people register to vote and/or update their registration. It went well but a couple of interactions left me with questions.

We had a lot of positive engagement, with a couple of exceptions. One person just said “NO” as if I’d offered her something distasteful. Another said “when you register for something you forfeit your rights.” My fellow volunteer mentioned another person who had a similar response while I was away from our table.

I had no idea how to respond, and neither did my co-volunteer. (Though none of them stuck around to debate the issue). Initial internet searches were unsuccessful. Any idea what might be behind this POV?

posted by bunderful to Law & Government (29 answers total)

Another said “when you register for something you forfeit your rights.”

Sounds like you ran into a sovereign citizen! You're lucky you didn't get more of an earful!
posted by praemunire at 11:28 AM on August 17

Agree this is likely someone with views that align somewhere on the sovereign citizen spectrum.

However, context matters; if this person didn't want to be approached, they may have felt a little cornered and reacted in a strange-to-you way. I have PTSD, and people coming to my house to canvass has been a really big trigger for pretty significant dysregulation. Oftentimes replying with a 'No, thank you' is not seen by canvassers as a place to stop the conversation, but as a place for those volunteers to wedge in their script to continue. It's really uncomfortable for certain folks for this to happen, and can lead to Big Problems for them for hours/days/weeks after this type pushy interaction. Being defensive, and absurdly weird is, oddly enough, a really good way to put a canvasser off balance to buy enough time to get away from the situation. I have had to resort to saying some wild, wild shit to get canvassers to just leave me alone.

I am in no way saying you or your co-volunteer were being disrespectful, pushy, or doing anything wrong, but depending on how they approached you/you approached them, they could have started the interaction seeing you blocks away, and been extremely on the defensive, because of how political canvassers and volunteers can often operate.
posted by furnace.heart at 11:47 AM on August 17

Virtually everyone in the US is very passionate about the upcoming election, so almost by definition, if you're a random layperson out there expending energy to register people, it's because you're hoping their vote will be turned to the service of your preferred candidate.

I can understand some people finding that distasteful, regardless of their political alignment, because it seems a bit like you're intervening in a very personal thing (their political expression as a citizen) and appropriating it for your own ends, under the guise of friendly, neutral helpfulness. For a person who's already politically aware and active, even in the same political camp, it might well feel a little condescending, a little intrusive and/or a little disempowering.
posted by Bardolph at 11:48 AM on August 17

People might not want to register to vote

a) if they are undocumented and are worried about their immigration status

b) if they have, or are worried that they have, outstanding warrants or fines

c) if they have outstanding child support or debts to the tax office
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 11:51 AM on August 17

Some people are distrustful of anything to do with the government, and there are few things more government-y than voting. And a lot of this suspicion is justified, historically! Not so much with voting, but with being on a list that the government can use for all kinds of things. It’s pretty simple to cross reference voter registration with demographic details, if you’re a government entity, and that opens the door to all kinds of unpleasant things. Most of the time, in most places, the parts of the government responsible for elections are not nefarious, and part of your role as volunteer is to put a human face on it and reassure people that voting is something that won’t bite them in the ass. But sometimes you’ll encounter people for whom that has not been true, or was not true for an ancestor, or they think it won’t be true now. There’s all kinds of people out there.
posted by Mizu at 11:56 AM on August 17

Remember ACORN and how when Obama first ran for President there was a whole Republican campaign to demonize them for doing voter registration? They painted registering voters as being identical to voter fraud (and also turned "community organizer" into a right-wing translation for "socialist fifth column" - especially since Obama had worked as one).

So this might be left over from that. It depends on where you live but overall higher voter registration favors Democrats, and maybe voter registration is still seen/demonized as an enemy activity in the right-wing universe.
posted by trig at 12:00 PM on August 17

That definitely sounds like what I've read about sovereign citizens, which is a whole can of worms it's best not to open.
posted by Alensin at 12:00 PM on August 17

Names for jury duty are pulled from voter rolls. That's not the only way you can be chosen for jury duty, but there are people who avoid registering to vote to decrease their chances of getting jury duty.
posted by Redstart at 12:09 PM on August 17

It would depend for me what the 'event' is and how credible and officially sanctioned-seeming. I'm not signing anything outside of the supermarket front door. I might make a mental note to look into it and seek it out later.
(A simple "no thanks" and then ignoring you would suffice for me, though.)
posted by ctmf at 12:12 PM on August 17

In Curb Your Enthusiasm season 11 episode 8, Leon comments on why he doesn't vote:

Once you start voting, there's taxes, and... and... and jury duty, and old-ass warrants that pop up out of nowhere. fսck all that.

Humorous, but there is some truth (and some perceived) in that.
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 12:12 PM on August 17

I'm assuming, from the description, that the "event" was unrelated to voting, and then you had a booth or a clipboard? Like there was a weekly farmer's market and, in addition to the people who stopped by, you'd occasionally call out to passers by who made brief eye contact?

If that's right, the strong "NO" in those cases is often just a defensive, I-don't-want-to-be-buttonholed reaction. Trying to be firm but comes off as brusque. It happens when you're raising money for puppies too, they don't hate puppies (usually), they just want to buy their zucchini and go home.

And, as Bardolph says, a lot of registering to vote activity is done by partisan political actors. Savvy pedestrians realize that frequently engagement on that will be followed by "educational" material about a candidate or cause. I certainly wouldn't approach something that twigged as a Republican-manned voter registration table in my free time.
posted by mark k at 12:18 PM on August 17

It's also possible that the person you approached had a felony conviction or is without a home or permanent address and didn't want to explain that to a stranger.

Different states have different rules about getting your voting rights restored or how to vote if you don't have a permanent address. I
posted by brookeb at 12:18 PM on August 17

I've been trying to be careful not to let this come through, but at this point I am nearing "NO" myself because I am registered, know precisely how to change my registration if needed, could even help someone else register, and fundamentally think registration efforts could much better be directed at basically any socioeconomic groups besides mine unless the event in question is a Pride thing.
posted by teremala at 12:38 PM on August 17

I suspect “sovereign citizen” is the answer. And I now feel very good about not asking follow-up questions.

Thanks, everyone!
posted by bunderful at 12:41 PM on August 17

I think it is extremely common for people to find being approached at a non-political event for political reasons to be distasteful.

I wouldn’t take it personally.
posted by moosetracks at 1:16 PM on August 17

The number of people who don't like being solicited is a lot larger than the number of people who can't vote because of a felony conviction, which is in turn a lot larger than the number of people who espouse sovereign citizen beliefs.

That's not to say the people you interacted with were definitely not sovereign citizens, but it seems far from the most likely explanation.
posted by box at 1:22 PM on August 17

When I was younger and/or living somewhere for a set period, I sometimes avoided it or put it off to avoid jury duty. As it happens, I have never even had to go in for my jury summonses, much less serve. Now I don’t worry about it—not that I would let it stop me since MAGA times came around.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:29 PM on August 17

It could be a sovereign citizen for sure, with the comment about rights. But in my experience, that's a a pretty small group. MAGA is a much bigger group, and many of them know that they only win by a combination of gerrymandering, low turnout, and low registration of eligible voters. So of the handful distasteful rejections, I bet some were just that.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:21 PM on August 17

Sounds like a Sovereign Citizen thing to say.

On the other hand I know people who won't vote because they consider elections a large scale version of the Trolley Problem. Choosing between the lesser of two evils isn't for everyone.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:52 PM on August 17

Never discount that some people are poorly informed and possibly jerks.
posted by theora55 at 3:55 PM on August 17

Another reason a person might not want to register to vote or register at a public event is if they are concerned about being found by a stalker or abusive ex-partner/family members.

In many US states voter registration information, including address, is available to the anyone who asks for it. Depending on the state there may be a way for such people to safely register and vote, but a random public event with untrained volunteers isn't one of them. To learn more check out: The Safety Net Project from the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
posted by radiogreentea at 4:39 PM on August 17

Two myths I've run into a lot while petitioning:

1) Registering to vote means you'll be called for jury duty (lol I wish -- I've been registered for 28 years and have yet to be called)

2) Registering to vote when you're a felon will send you back to prison (felons can legally vote in the vast majority of states)
posted by Jacqueline at 5:50 PM on August 17

My mom didn't vote for years, trying to avoid jury duty. *eye-roll*

My new coworkers Have Stories! about when sovereign citizens call. They are lulus.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:30 PM on August 17

With publicly available knowledge anyone can look up my voter registration to see which party I'm affiliated with. I can easily imagine someone not wanting that, especially if they don't know party affiliation is optional.
posted by firefly5 at 7:40 AM on August 18

Could also be someone that believes that voting supports colonization and that voting "keeps us at the mercy of our oppressors." In this theory, enfranchisement is just a tool of assimilation, and Indigenous people who vote are giving up their sovereignty. In this theory, by not voting you are rejecting settler colonial authority. I have been seeing this a lot in leftist circles recently.
posted by rednikki at 9:03 AM on August 18

I don't want my party affiliation to be publicly available and I don't like being confronted by people with clipboards in public.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 11:02 AM on August 18

Nothing surprises me anymore: in the airport on Friday, a middle-aged guy in a "don't tread on me" ballcap was also wearing a t-shirt that said "we finally beat medicare."

Who's against Medicare?!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:55 PM on August 18

You mean government run socialist healthcare programs?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:27 PM on August 18

That one might actually be a deep cut reference to Biden's slip at the debate. "We hate government-run socialist programs but those radicals are secretly conspiring to take away our government-run socialist programs" is a thing.
posted by trig at 12:44 AM on August 19