How does one prove one has citizenship? A birth certificate? I would be hard-pressed to find mine. Would probably have to go back to my home town court. I don’t know anyone who carries his birth certificate in his wallet.
How does one prove one has citizenship? A birth certificate?
A birth certificate is easy to obtain. A letter to the clerk of the court of the county in which one was born, along with the required fee (varies by county), will allow one to obtain a certified birth certificate which is required to obtain a US Passport.
Interesting the government requires proof of citizenship to leave or enter the country but not to vote. It used to be possible to travel to Canada without a passport. No longer.
You don’t but I bet there are at least 200 Mexican nationals who have a copy of it in their wallets! (Bwahahahahaha)
I can't speak for you but I wasn't able to get my driver's license without showing my birth certificate. In fact in the not so distant past it was required by law that one show the DMV his/her birth certificate in order to verify, amongst other things, their age and... If I'm not mistaken, MOST states DMV's (ironically AZ isn't one of them) require you to present a SSN in order to get your license. Back in the day you couldn't get a state to issue you a driver's license without proving you are first old enough to drive and second that you were a US citizen. If you aren't a US citizen and you wish to drive on American roads you must have a driver's license from your home country.
Having a passport also frees you from the burdensome task of having to carry around your birth certificate. To my knowledge one must still submit verification that he/she is a US citizen (i.e. birth certificate, driver's license/state ID with a picture on it and authorized photo) and be interviewed by a living passport office employee...
Seriously... You're just being sarcastic aren't you?
passport
Requiring registrants to present a birth certificate is hardly onerous. I recently had to produce mine to get a driver's license, and prior to that to get my passport. I had to purchase a copy from my birth state because my orginal BC was not up to modern standards (no unique id number and no contact information for the issuing authority (The state! Lol!)).
All you would need to do would be contact the county clerk of the county where you were born and requrest a certified copy of your BC. You’d get it by mail in a week or two in return for a fee of about $15.00 or $20.00. I did it about 10 years ago so I could apply for a passport.
Anyone that changes jobs in the post-"patriot" act America has to show proof of their eligibility to work. It's called the I-9 form, and requires several bits of documentation of eligibility, among which, a birth certificate is one qualifier. I had to order a replacement birth certificate from the state of my birth last year to do this. Fortuantely, the Lord was taking care of me ahead of time, as he'd prodded the company I was working for to get I-9 docs from me while I was still working for the company where I'd been since 2000. I just changed jobs a month ago, and it was useful to have nice, fresh SS card, and birth certificate available
The point being, they wouldn't want to see your birth certificate when you vote. They want it when you register. This is a perfectly reasonable request. If the DMV records weren't so screwed up with illegals, I'd support just using a driver's license as enough, but given the world we live in today, I'd really prefer to see a DL and BC, or a passport (which also works for the I-9 form BTW).
We need to be able to do something about vote fraud in this country. Perhaps a one-time thorough check, i.e., DL+BC|Passport, then every four or 5 years, re-validate the DL to make sure you're still alive and kicking.
Once you find or otherwise obtain your birth cert. take it to your county clerk’s office and have it registered with them. They will copy it and verify that it is a certified copy of your BC. You will then have a copy stored in a safe place and
easily accessible if you misplace or lose the one you keep. I do this with important papers like my BC and DD-214 etc.
Call Pedro at 1-800-GET-ANID - he'll fix you right up!
I got a notice last week that we will need a Photo ID with an Expiration Date to vote in the PA General Election in November - nothing about a Citizenship requirement. :^(
I couldn’t open my last bank account 7 years ago or get my Nevada driver’s license without showing my birth cert. Then I used the driver’s license to register to vote.