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I read this great novel about 30 years ago. I don't remember the cover but it was a paperback.

A terrible war is fought between humans and aliens that look like spiders but are larger than humans.

An important point in the book was that only veterans of that war were allowed to vote.

There is also a movie based on the novel, but I was very, very disappointed by it since it was mostly battle scenes and all the societal aspect was almost absent.

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    An odd coincidence (?): the film Starship Troopers is today's (7 Nov 2024, the day you posted this question) front-page featured article on the English Wikipedia.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Nov 7 at 14:36
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    One point made very clearly in the book was that not only ex-soldiers got the vote (and in particular not only veterans of this particular interstellar war). Rather, you got the franchise after completing a tour of voluntary service. The most conspicuous such service is military, and the book is written from the POV of a soldier. But there is a flashback in which it is explicitly clarified that the vast majority of voters did civilian service, not military. The focus is very clearly on service, not on militarism. (And the movie got the book grotesquely wrong.)
    – Stephan Kolassa
    Commented Nov 7 at 23:10
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    @StephanKolassa, do you happen to recall if it mentioned any particular sorts of civil service? I always seem to have had the impression the alternatives to military service actually presented in the book were of a rather demeaning sort, something offered for people not fit to serve even as grunts just because something has to be offered. I think there was also something about the service requiring putting oneself at risk for the benefit of others, and e.g. being a regular nurse in peace time might not cut it. (It might be time for me to re-read, but I don't have the book at hand.)
    – ilkkachu
    Commented Nov 8 at 16:16
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    Was literally any attempt at finding this book done? When I googled “only veterans can vote sci-fi book” the first twenty results are about Starship Troopers.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Nov 8 at 18:38
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    @DanielB - They clearly knew what it was. Either they did it for the easy HNQ reputation or they were trolling.
    – Adamant
    Commented Nov 9 at 2:55

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That's got to be the classic Starship Troopers, by Robert A Heinlein. From Wikipedia:

The story is set in a future society ruled by a human interstellar government called the Terran Federation, dominated by a military elite. Under the Terran Federation, only veterans of Federal Service (including, but not limited to, military service) enjoy full citizenship, such as the right to vote.[6] The first-person narrative follows Juan "Johnny" Rico, a young man of Filipino descent, through his military service in the Mobile Infantry. He progresses from recruit to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between humans and an alien species known as "Arachnids" or "Bugs". The movie has been widely criticised for glorfying war and missing Heinlein's point.

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    Glad to learn I was not the only one to think that the movie missed the author's point !
    – Alfred
    Commented Nov 7 at 9:46
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    @Alfred The film didn't miss the point, rather it was an attempt to deconstruct the original novel. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)#Writing
    – Paul Johnson
    Commented Nov 7 at 9:53
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    @Alfred For more about the book versus film, see this answer.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    Commented Nov 7 at 14:38
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    @PaulJohnson - that is 100% false. The movie not only had almost nothing in common with the book; it wasn't even started with the book in mind - they just slapped the book's label on the top of unrelated movie later on, to attract more interest due to the book's popularity; without taking almost anything from the book aside from the names and some very superficial trappings.
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Nov 8 at 1:52
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    In any event, I didn't hear about the movie being criticized for glorifying war as compared to the book, which is actually often qualified as a war and authoritarianism pamphlet and even sometimes as a pro-fascist work. There are people who understood the movie naively as glorifying war (I was one), but I never heard of someone saying that after comparing the movie to the book.
    – Gouvernathor
    Commented Nov 13 at 20:44

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