DesertRoomie is ten years younger than I and when we simultaneously got our Arizona DLs I noticed the difference in years valid and commented on it. The clerk said, “It’s because… your birthday’s further back,” end explained that policy. I said, “What a gentle way to put it.”
Yes, I had to have my license renewed as 65 and yes, I had to pass a vision test. The license is valid for five years and I expect another vision test next year when I renew.
My hypothesis about that is that as a Border State they probably had already geared up for EDL, and they must have felt adding on Real-ID was a redundant unfunded mandate from DC (there are a LOT of states that are only complying now because they realized the federal government were never going to yield on that the states had to do the migration at their own cost, but to the satisfaction of the feds).
True. They were all lawfully present in the USA. The post-9/11 environment created a small opening for advocates of a proposition that we have often mentioned in threads on this: Universal ID.
Ah, BUT… you are right that it is partly on purpose – it is also partly an artifact of the way “government” in the USA is jurisdictionally fragmented.
The “on purpose” part has to do in turn with this:
A large segment of the US population and the political establishment would not want there to be a Universal National ID, and especially not in a way that every single public agency gets updated on everything that happens in your life (of course this is the same population that doesn’t mind revealing everything about themselves in real time to Google and Facebook :rolleyes:) But then you add onto it the jurisdictional issues. First of which is:
Because there is no authority to issue a National Universal ID Document, the best the federal government can do is to establish what standards a state ID needs to meet to be in turn accepted by federal agencies.
In the USA the national government handles naturalizations and issues the passport, also the social security number which is supposed to be ONLY for tax and disability/retirement benefit purposes, NOT a universal ID number; the States issue the driving license; voter registration is a matter of state law handled either at a state office, sometimes jointly with the driving license, or at a county-level office; the Civil Registry, including the Birth Certificate and the Marriage License, is most often handled at the county/municipal level.
That, you may notice, forces the states to determine what document they will issue to be Real-ID compliant, for which they have generally used the Driver License or State Non-Driver ID since that infrastructure was already in place; and that leads to the other factor:
Each state issuer is made responsible for having vetted the “Real-ID” part of the document (federally-aceptable information about your identity and citizenship or lawful presence), since it is in fact a state document issued by a state agency for state purposes, it’s NOT a National ID, no sir, nuh-uh, no way… Which means each of them has their own set of state-specific terms and requirements to which the Real-ID process may be added. So while for example the actuak Driving License part of my Puerto Rico or Virginia DL are granted reciprocity by agreement between their respective Directors of Motor Vehicle Services for the purpose of not needing to retest if I move, they would have *always *required me to provide evidence of residence; and on top of that, the federal mandate for Real-ID makes each of them responsible for having seen my identity/citizenship paperwork before issuing their card to me stamped with the star.
Interesting, my friend just moved to Kentucky and got a new driver’s license and it wasn’t a REAL ID, this was just last month.
I was just at the airport today and they still have signs everywhere about October 1.
Ok, insert random KY joke here, but how are they not issuing the new licenses now? I assume this means the deadline is pushed back further.
Because you don’t have to have it. It’s optional. If you want it you have to ask for it and bring the proper documentation.
I don’t think the deadline is getting pushed back again. It’ll be an unpleasant surprise for some folks come October.
This. You can still get a regular one in California too.
Not true in all states.
In Indiana all people getting their first license and all people moving to Indiana from another state HAVE TO get a RealID. The only people with an option to NOT get a RealID are current residents who already have a valid driver’s license/State ID card.
My friend has a passport so he’ll be fine.
Just a few days ago the airport’s assoc is asking for a delay because of the significant percentage of the population that still doesn’t have one.
Source: Dayton, OH news site
The article continues by stating that < ⅓ of OH IDs issued in the past 20 months are compliant.
I’m not sure this means that there will be a crisis. Some people rarely or never fly. Some people have passports or other ID that would work.
And, there is still 7 months before the deadline.
Personally, I don’t care if REALID ever gets implemented, but it would seem counterproductive to extend the deadline again.
I
Thanks for your timely list!
I need to renew my license in April - I had a vision test yesterday with this in mind…I do need glasses as suspected, sigh - but I didn’t know until today that New Hampshire caved after refusing for years and is offering real IDs in 2020.
Your list prompted me to look at the doc list and I just ordered a new copy of my long lost birth certificate. It disappeared after a move, and I just haven’t needed it since, at least until now because I definitely want the Real ID so I can fly for work next year. I almost got a copy five years back but at that point you still had to get it in person and I don’t live in my state of birth.
I’m glad that NH is finally complying, I wasn’t happy about the prospect of needing to pay without reimbursement(!) for a passport at some point this year just to fly to San Diego for work.
See, this is the kind of nitpicky details, and similar, that I worry about. I envision some front-line overworked underpaid DMV worker pretty much making up their own rules about ambiguities like this.
My birth certificate is a 50-year-old photocopy with a purple rubber-stamped seal on it. Do newer certificates look like that? Will the DMV droid recognize and accept it?
I lost my wallet, social security card included, about 40 years ago. The duplicate card I got doesn’t really look like an original, not to mention that it’s faded to nearly unreadable.
My documents, even all the various gov’t issued ones, are all over the place on how they write my middle name. Some spell it out in full. Some abbreviate to just the initial. The Social Security Admin itself can’t get consistent. My card, and I think most of their records, include my full middle name. (This matches my birth certificate.) But my SSA-1099 forms, which I may use instead, just have my middle initial.
I get all my mail at a P.O. Box. The DMV instructions say that’s okay as long as the bill includes my residence address too. My utility bills list a separate “Service Address”, which is my home address, but it’s at a different place on the page. Will they accept that?
I don’t want to have to go there to get my license and then have them not accept because of some nitpicky blather like that. And I don’t know that I have any option to have my docs screened well in advance so I can have the time to cure any screwups.
In case you haven’t been warned, in at least North Carolina the 1099 forms have to have your full social security number, and ones that just show the last 4 digits cannot be used.
Chill out, Senegoid, the clerks have done thousands of these apiece by now. They just want to get through the day. My birth certificate is a photocopy from the 70s with a purple stamp that was at one time folded into a little square. My SS card is of similar vintage and in terrible shape. Get as much as you can together and you’ll be fine.
That last one will be annoying. I’m sure I have a marriage certificate somewhere… I remember we had to show it to a Social Security office when we were first married, as otherwise our joint return’s refund would have been delayed.
My state now has RealID-compliant licenses. It was optional at first; I don’t know if it still is optional but I’ll found out in a couple of years when I have to renew again. A friend found out the hard way that they are mandatory under some circumstances: she is a naturalized citizen, and had accidentally let hers expire. When she went to fix that, they required more documentation because of the expiration - and refused to accept her original naturalization certificate as evidence since some database was missing her name. She had to get her congressman involved to get them to get their heads out of their… missing database entries :D.
What tracking can they do with the RealID license that they can’t with the passport?
I went to DMV to get my expiring license renewed and upgraded to Enhanced, and it was crazy busy. It took 3 hours. First I waited in line outside the building for 10 minutes, and then had to wait 2 hours to have my papers looked at, and then another 50 minute wait to see a clerk who processed the application.
There were people who had arrived a couple of hours before I did, when it was even busier. They had to wait outside the building for 30 minutes and it took them over 4 hours.
An employee talking to a group of frustrated people behind me said that it’s been getting busier every week since the start of the year.
sorry double post, 504 error
Not if you have a passport, afaik.
I refuse to get a REAL ID as they are racist as fuck.
Nothing to do with terrorism. It’s 100% racism, based upon the fear that brown people might be able to fly. You know that “illegals” who are all bad hombre rapists. :rolleyes:
That’s the only people who are stopped from flying. Not terrorists.