We’ll see if Real ID is ever actually implemented. The deadline keeps pushing out. It’s now May 2025….
4 Likes
To pass the road test, won’t that require either driver’s ed or a car to practice with?
5 Likes
Oregon allows prospective drivers to either get 50 hours of supervised practice driving with a licensed adult plus a driver’s education course or 100 hours of driving practice with a licensed adult. That’s it.
4 Likes
And, in PA, registering to vote also automatically signs you up for Jury Duty, which has been suppressing voters for decades as a deterrent.
I can’t tell you how many people recommended I never register to vote, for that reason.
6 Likes
Anybody who really wants to get out of jury duty can with a few well-timed phrases; but why? It’s an important function and frankly kinda fun. And if you are ever a defendant, do you really want a jury that is so incompetent that they are the only ones who failed to get out of jury duty?
8 Likes
Jury duty notifications come off the DMV database where I live. If you’re not in it, you don’t get jury duty.
I never received a draft registration notification, but given every male resident regardless of citizenship has to register for selective service, I can’t imagine that database is useful for voting registration.
California started registering (or pre-registering if under 18) people to vote when they get a state id, driver’s license or change of address at the DMV in 2018. It helped push voter registrations from 78% to 88%, but now we’re back down to 82% for some reason.
3 Likes
In some countries, the test costs £450, because robot drivers have priority. Suck it, humans!
Next, make it the same thing for filing tax. After all, responsibility should come with rights, right?
I think every state has implemented it and is using it for new or renewed lD. It’s just the requirement to have one to fly domestically or enter federal buildings that has been pushed back because the last holdout states haven’t issued new licenses to everybody.
You can still opt out. They won’t give it to you if you don’t have enough proof of citizenship, some of which are stupid.
2 Likes
PA also offers free ID for various groups - some are for those who do not drive or have a permanent address. 
3 Likes
My point is that the government knowing where to send a notification in general isn’t some impossible problem to solve, and wasn’t in the days before digital databases were the norm. No-one is assuming a 100% success or accuracy rate, but if there’s actual motivation to get a lot of citizens registered to vote – especially young ones – there are plenty of ways to do it no matter where the individual currently resides.
As others have pointed out, other advanced liberal-democratic economies manage to do it without the hand-wringing or defeatism or whinging about “exceptionalism”. The real problem in the U.S. is that one duopoly party doesn’t want young people and BIPOC to register to vote.
6 Likes
I don’t know about “automatic” (in 20 years at my MD address, I’ve been summoned 3 times: the 2nd & 3rd were >10 years apart), but I figured it was like that everywhere. But it’s not like they won’t/can’t otherwise find a potential juror; I’m pretty sure traffic citations feed into their database.
But yeah, I’ve known people (granted, years ago) who gave that reason for not registering.
2 Likes
Isn’t the whole reason we have men register for the draft and notify them when they move because there isn’t a database though?
Like I said, I never got a notification to register. From a cursory google search, it doesn’t look like the Selective Service System actually sends notifications to register. The DC DMV seems to though… to young men who have registered for an ID.
Most other advanced liberal democracies have a much easier time because they’re almost universally unitary states. They have nice central databases of citizens to use to do voter registration and freely share information between national and local governments. By contrast, in the US you have to prove to the Federal government you’re a citizen to get a passport because they literally do not know.
But yeah, one of the parties isn’t interested in having everyone vote, so even the easy things we can do like automatic registration at the DMV isn’t implemented in states they control.
1 Like
Okay, but how will they prevent dead people from registering? Marge wants to know.
I hadn’t thought about selective service since I registered in another lifetime so I checked.
A lot, like most, states do not allow you to get a driver’s license unless you’re registered, a few states do it automatically when you get a license.
Many states won’t give you any state aid assistance unless you’re registered, that includes financial aid for state colleges. Some states won’t even let you enroll in state college if you’re not registered. State employment even requires it.
They really make it hard to avoid.
This link gives a rundown of which states do what and lists each states laws.
The database for the initial notification is built using other databases. They’re not going to catch everyone but they’ll get enough to accomplish what they want, which is to get young men to acknowledge they’ve been notified of their draftable status at the pleasure of the government, which can find you wherever you are.
I’ve never had to update my Selective Service record when I moved (the first time within a few months of my receiving it), and the government didn’t make any effort to force me to even if it technically is the requirement. That’s because they already know how to find me.
The U.S. is effectively one too. Your Social Security number is the equivalent of other countries’ national ID numbers and is shared between lots of agencies at all levels of government, as well as with financial institutions. Getting a bank account or a passport without existing in the Social Security system in the U.S. is as impossible as getting those things in a unitary European state without a national ID.
The U.S. engages in the pretense that it isn’t the case because it panders to what Hofstatder called “the paranoid style in American politics” and to give a sense of exceptionalism from “old Europe” and Commie countries. Part of that pretense is deliberately not sharing Social Security-based data for matters the duopoly parties don’t care about or want people to jump through extra hoops over, voter registration being one of them. It’s also why they demand you keep your main official personal record of this important central ID number on a single card made of paper that looks like it will dissolve if you touch it.
So that nice central DB of citizens also exists in the U.S., but the government uses it selectively as a result of the same stupid Libertarian-infused political culture that brought us our health insurance system. Put another way, this dysfunctionand inefficiency is a choice, one especially favoured by Republicans.
If they have your date and place of birth and a Social Security number, they already know to a high degree of accuracy whether or not you’re a citizen. The IRS already knows every address most citizens have lived at since they were children, for example.
The only proof of citizenship most native-born Americans have to provide to get their first U.S. passport is an official birth certificate. It’s a starting point confirmation. Everything else is supporting evidence of identity and then a check against info they already have, especially that you exist in the Social Security database. Once you have a passport, that serves as the only proof of citizenship you need when you have to renew.
4 Likes
It isn’t. We issue social security numbers to both citizens and non-citizens. Some people have more than one number, some don’t have one at all and some people share a single number. The SSA doesn’t even have people’s addresses or verify citizenship status until they apply for benefits - two things you need for voter registration.
You don’t need a social security number to get a US passport and quite a few banks and credit unions will let you open up an account without a SSN.
Proposals to create a national ID get shot down by everyone. You have the loons screaming about the mark of the beast. You have the civil liberties folks who fear the government demanding papers, loss of anonymity, tracking, privacy violations, mass deportations of undocumented people and/or voting ID mandates.
Frankly, after 15 years implementing a federated Real IDs, it’s hard to imagine anyone pushing for an actual national ID. I’m really having trouble imagining even California being willing to rely on the Federal government to tell them who voters are.
1 Like
If you’re a legal adult the state and Federal government should also have the mailing address you use to file your taxes.
2 Likes
Technically the non-citizens get "TIN"s, but it’s the same namespace, so the distinction doesn’t really matter.
Yep. And that’d be the case with any database / identity scheme. The figure of merit is what percentage this occurs.
This used to be true. It’s still not impossible, but it’s getting very close.
They absolutely shouldn’t – after all, the only exclusively Federal election is the Electoral College selecting the president (though the US Constitution does give huge amounts of power to Congress in setting election standards for congresscritters).
1 Like
Much like the cops, the data exists, and can hurt you, but won’t generally help you.
1 Like
