"Arizona style" Immigration Bill Filed in Texas

[chasfm11]

How about a law that requires someone to prove citizenship to register to vote?

[Purplehood]

How about a law that requires someone to prove citizenship to register to vote?

Out of curiosity, how are you going to do that? Do you have citizenship papers or just a regular old birth certificate that you are going to drag in?

[chasfm11]

How about a law that requires someone to prove citizenship to register to vote?

Out of curiosity, how are you going to do that? Do you have citizenship papers or just a regular old birth certificate that you are going to drag in?

It is really simple. I had to produce proof of citizenship in order to get my driver's license. The "proof" doesn't come to the polling place but is required before the voter registration card is issued. That gives everybody lots of time to work through any problems.

I figure if it is good enough for a DL, it is good enough for voter registration, too.

[chasfm11]

I had to produce proof of citizenship in order to get my driver's license.

I didn't - what kind of proof did they want? IIRC, all I had to give them was a SSN.

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/driverlice ... ements.htm

They only require it once but they do require it. Perhaps you did yours a while ago. I was a transfer to Texas and exchanged a license from another State. My wife went through the same thing. Our passports worked fine.

[chartreuse]

I had to produce proof of citizenship in order to get my driver's license.

I didn't - what kind of proof did they want? IIRC, all I had to give them was a SSN.

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/driverlice ... ements.htm

They only require it once but they do require it. Perhaps you did yours a while ago. I was a transfer to Texas and exchanged a license from another State. My wife went through the same thing. Our passports worked fine.

The bit I've bolded isn't always true. When I went to get my DL they delighted in repeatedly asking me to submit irrelevant documents, even though they'd seen them before. They also failed me on the test, one time, for striking another vehicle, while the car was stationary. Eventually, I figured out that the trick was to apply in a city, not a small town where they didn't want foreigners "taking their jobs".

[Purplehood]

How about a law that requires someone to prove citizenship to register to vote?

Out of curiosity, how are you going to do that? Do you have citizenship papers or just a regular old birth certificate that you are going to drag in?

It is really simple. I had to produce proof of citizenship in order to get my driver's license. The "proof" doesn't come to the polling place but is required before the voter registration card is issued. That gives everybody lots of time to work through any problems.

I figure if it is good enough for a DL, it is good enough for voter registration, too.

I didn't provide proof of citizenship.

[chasfm11]

Purplehood,

I'm not sure why unless Texas already had something that verifies your citizenship.

There was a lot of discussion in 2005 about Federal requirements on the States to make them all verify citizenship for driver's license applicants. I don't remember hearing the resolution to the bill that stirred the furor over the equivalent of a National ID card. The fact that the Texas link that I provided looks like this one from PA
http://www.dmv.state.pa.us/pdotforms/fa ... b195us.pdf
suggests that it wasn't just a Texas initiative.

Like any other government program, it is possible that it has hit or miss implementation. Texas also had a program to verify insurance for all vehicles. Our RV got caught up in that. The program checked all of the auto insurance policies in the State and the VIN numbers that they contained against the current DPS registration data base. When our RV had been registered, we sent the correct VIN on the paperwork but it was apparently mis-entered in the DPS database. We got a nasty note saying that we were falsely claiming insurance coverage. It took weeks to get it all straightened out. Estimates are that more than 20% of the vehicles on the road still don't have insurance. Given the DPS' cumbersome verification process, it isn't clear why that is still such a big number.

[Purplehood]

I must admit that I wouldn't have a problem with my DL including my legal citizenship status on it. In my mind I could use that to vote and do lots of cool things.
I know that this contradicts my general feelings about less government intrusiveness, but it does support my theory that keeping it simple is better.