After a Facebook post I made yesterday, I’ve been thinking a
lot about how you get an ID card. If I didn’t have one, how would I get one?
In order to vote in Minnesota under the new amendment, you
need a Minnesota Driver’s license, or state-issued identification card. You
cannot vote with a passport, or any other kind of federally-recognized ID. So,
you need to get a state card.
How do you get such an ID?
Here’s a link to the page — I looked for it so you don’t
have to, it’s not exactly an intuitive Google search.
And here’s the list of approved identification documents.
You will need one primary and one secondary document in order to apply for a
state-issued ID.
The first bullet point is the most commonly stated one — a
birth certificate.
Do you know where
your birth certificate is?
I don’t know where mine is; I don’t know if I personally
have ever had possession of it. And the hospital where I was born is closed.
For Patrick (who does actually have his), it would be even harder to get a copy
since many records in Louisiana, where he was born, are gone post-Katrina.
Alright, so I go to get my birth certificate, per these instructions.
I get together $26 to pay for the copy, I print the form, I
get it notarized (all this takes about an hour away from my workday), I get
ready to send it all in, until I come across this line of the instructions:
Enclose a photocopy of
your valid driver's license or state issued identification card
See the problem here?
I’m not eligible for most of the other allowable forms of
ID, such as a “secure unexpired Minnesota tribal identification card” or a “certified
adoption certificate from a U.S. court.” In short, if I do not already have a
state identification card for whatever reason, there’s a good chance I am out
of luck for getting one now.
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Say I do resolve this, I find my birth certificate and my
passport, or secure other forms of identification, I go down and get the state
ID card (taking more time out of my day, the wait when I was there last week
was over 2 hours) and costing me another $17.25 (assuming I don’t need it
expedited for another $20). So I am out between $17-50 in document costs, plus
whatever hours I had to take off work.
How is this not a de facto poll tax?
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With all this hassle and rigamarole and timing issues and
the like, there is no way that you can say it’s not an impediment to require
people to have an ID to vote. It’s been exhausting to even track down the
information.
But here is where I get down to policy. I don’t have a
Minnesota ID card, so I can’t speak to that.
What it comes down to for me, in relation to policy, it that
my Minnesota driver’s license is just that — a license to operate a vehicle.
It’s a specific legal document. It’s not meant to stand in for another kind of documentation
(which is why I don’t even print my license number on my checks, the way many
people do).
If you want to even begin the voter ID discussion with me,
offer me a free, universal, and accessible form of identification that you
propose to do that with.
