If voting is the cornerstone of American democracy, then why does it have to be such a pain? Election Day in the U.S. is always a Tuesday, smack in the middle of the work week. If you move to a new state or county, you need to re-register. State voter ID requirements change all the time, so you could show up to a polling station, wait in line and still get blocked from voting. Now imagine that you’re homeless in America. You move so frequently that it’s nearly impossible to maintain a stable mailing address. You’ve never had a driver’s license and your Social Security card was lost years ago. You can’t afford transportation to the county elections office or your local polling place. And frankly, you have a lot more pressing problems than registering to vote. So, while homeless people have every right to vote in U.S. elections (and may want to if only to influence policy on housing and poverty), the obstacles to successfully registering and voting while homeless can be insurmountable.
First, there’s the residence and mailing address issue. Interestingly, none of the 50 states requires that voters live in a traditional residence. On voter registration forms, you can put a homeless shelter address, a street corner, a park bench — you can even attach a hand-drawn map.
That’s fine for establishing that you’re a resident of the state and county, but many states also require that you provide a mailing address where you can actually receive mail. Again, that can be a shelter, or a friend or relative’s house, but it can’t be a P.O. box and it can’t be a park bench.
While it’s easy for most Americans to provide an alternative address where we could receive mail, that’s often not the case for people struggling with homelessness. And without a fixed address to receive election notices from the county clerk’s office, homeless voters can be wiped from voter registration rolls.
Full Article: Homeless Americans Can Vote, But It Isn’t Easy | HowStuffWorks.