Home › Blogs › Vicki Boyer's blog ›

Voter ID Catch-22

Submitted by Vicki Boyer on Wed, 03/13/2013 - 10:21am

When getting a driver's license in NC, one of your choices for documentation is to show your birth certificate. (There are other options, like military id's, but not everyone has one of those.)

I called New Hanover County to see what it would cost to get a copy of my birth certificate. Cost is $10, but I would have to provide a copy of my driver's license.

To get a driver's license I need to have a birth certificate, and to get a birth certificate I need a driver's license....

I could show an unexpired passport to get the driver's license, but an applicant needs a birth certificate to get the passport.

We don't realize that our systems of acquiring identification have become such a maze. If the state wants everyone to have a photo id to vote at the polls we will need to completely overhaul the systems and requirements for obtaining that id.

Tagged:

Comments

This Jim Crow poll tax/catch 22 is true for any name changes

Submitted by E. J. Smith (not verified) on Wed, 03/13/2013 - 1:37pm.

If your name on the birth certificate does not match the name you vote under, because to explain those, you must also send for certified copies of proof of those name changes. The certificates for a marriage, and the divorce decree or death certificate ending a previous marriage, will all have to be obtained with the ID you are seeking (a catch 22), and another $10 (poll tax).

The trip to DMV once all these things are assembled could pose a hardship as well. If there is any delay like mailing time to a distant county registrar, it could cost someone their vote. We must educate people to get this paperwork done well before early voting, if this Jim Crow legislation passes.

This law is nothing less than a modern day Jim Crow effort to limit the franchise, and it hits the poor and all women who have been married directly.

Not to mention there is no

Submitted by Nunyabiz (not verified) on Fri, 03/15/2013 - 3:08pm.

Not to mention there is no such problem as Voter Fraud anyway.
There have been something like 10 cases COUNTRY WIDE in the past 10+ years, in other words doesn't exist.

For a new driver the standard

Submitted by Huh on Sun, 03/17/2013 - 8:45pm.

For a new driver the standard at the DMV is a birth certificate and an original social security card.

I'm a moderate Democrat.