<p>Any full member on Ancestry dot com can look up official birth records from those born in the 1950’s or older. the info is basic, but it exists.</p>
<p>Regarding getting the birth certificate, here are the NYS requirements:</p>
<pre><code>One (1) of the following forms of valid photo-ID:
Driver license
State issued non-driver photo-ID card
Passport
U.S. Military issued photo-ID
</code></pre>
<p>OR</p>
<pre><code>Two (2) of the following showing the applicant’s name and address:
Utility or telephone bills
Letter from a government agency dated within the last six (6) months
</code></pre>
<p>So if you don’t already have a legal ID and your papers have been destroyed, or you have no documentation with an address, you can’t get it. Plus you have to factor in transportation and the factor that county offices are not open outside of normal business hours. So if you work during those times you’d have to get time off to go get the documents, assuming that you don’t have a vehicle. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to argue that this is difficult for most people. The situations that I am citing are certainly not typical, for sure. But what I’m saying is that those who say getting a legal ID is not that difficult are ignoring a lot of factors that are at play for certain subsets of the population that COULD and DO make it challenging, such as lack of transportation, lack of money, lack of forms of ID that can be used to obtain the identification, etc. </p>
<p>I just have a problem with any voting restriction that impacts one subset of the population more than others. And most certainly, this type of restriction is more of a challenge for working or financially struggling voters.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure that welfare recipients are one of the groups which Voter ID is intended to discourage.”</p>
<p>You need a government issued photo id to obtain federal welfare benefits.</p>
<p>Voter ID is required so dead people/fake people/non-citizens/out of state/out of locality residents do not vote. </p>
<p>In Miami at the 1997 election for mayor there were 2000 dead people who voted and a judge nullified the elections.</p>
<p>“A study by the Poughkeepsie Journal in October 2006 of the state’s then-new statewide database found that the list contained as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls, and that as many as 2,600 of them had cast votes from the grave.
The analysis by the Poughkeepsie newspaper matched names, dates of birth and ZIP codes in the state’s database of 11.7 million voter registration records against the same information in the Social Security Administration’s “Death Master File,” a database of 77 million records of deaths dating to 1937.”</p>
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<p>See, funny thing about that, Ignatius. I just checked our state and it’s very easy to request a copy of your birth certificate online. You just need to download and print the form and mail it along with a copy of valid governmental ID to accompany the application.</p>
<p>Now, if you’ve lost everything, how do you apply for the birth certificate? Because if memory serves, to replace your valid governmental ID, which appears to have been lost, you first need a copy of your birth certificate. And to get a copy of your birth . . . . </p>
<p>Does anyone see a certain circular argument going on here?</p>
<p>“the list contained as many as 77,000 dead people on its rolls …”</p>
<p>No doubt about it, each of those 77,000 should be dug up and prosecuted for not notifying their Registrar of Voters about their deceased state. </p>
<p>OK I’m being facetious — big time. But the point is that it’s no big deal to compare the two data bases and purge the “deadees.” When my Mom died in the latter part of the month her pension fund issued the next month’s check on the first. A week later the Executor was notified that the pension company had located her death in “the files” and wanted repayment (which of course was a reasonable request). If a private pension company can accomplish this in a few days, why is it such a problem for governmental institutions to do the same?</p>
<p>These are the identity requirements to get a SS replacement card. Birth Cert isn’t sufficient!</p>
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<p>Then you have to prove citizenship or legal residency.</p>
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<p>I had no valid I.D. after the flood and resorted to steps listed in the last paragraph. Still was able to do it on-line.</p>
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<p>Does your state have no similar back-up?</p>
<p>I’m only in favor of implementing mandated voter ID laws once there is a robust working system in place for granting required state IDs to everyone at public cost. </p>
<p>Since that hasn’t happened yet, I’m of the opinion they need to be held off because the risk of disenfranchising groups from exercising their constitutional rights are far greater than the statistically insignificant examples of voter fraud cited in the comments. Especially when we’ve had plenty of examples of this in recent US history…notwithstanding the denials by some…including a few commenters here. </p>
<p>I’m also surprised at how many people here are so enthusiastic about implementation of National voter ID laws and even using biometric scans considering how even a few years after 9/11…a critical mass of the US public was vociferously opposed to such policies as an Orwellian subversion of their constitutional liberties by the “big bad government”. </p>
<p>Heck…I still get an earful about this from my libertarian friends/acquaintances…</p>
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<p>The online bit may seem easy…but that assumes ownership of a computer…something I know is still not the case among everyone…even here in NYC. </p>
<p>Given many older computers to folks who took a big hit economically these last few years…including single parents and college kids who are putting themselves through the local CUNY community colleges/4-year schools. However…I know better than to think that my efforts are anything more than a pinkie in a collapsing dike. </p>
<p>It also fails to take into account how online systems/internet connections do go down for various technical and other reasons…</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>No computer at the time … no home actually. Used the computer at the public library.</p>
<p>I forget which state (I think Texas) in attempt to require ID’s for voting proposed a program that would come to your house and even assist with obtaining back up docs. The group claiming disinfranchisement cried foul and it didn’t pass. </p>
<p>Don’t schools require birth certain? In our area you cannot play youth sports without a birth cert. How are people getting marriage licenses without providing this info?</p>
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Are you sure those aren’t the requirements for getting a driver’s license or non-driver ID? I ordered a birth certificate online this week in NYS and all it took was information, no documentation at all.</p>
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<p>I don’t know about the libraries in your area…but I’ve seen plenty of public libraries…especially those in poor/working-class areas without public computers…or with those that haven’t been maintained/replaced since the days of Windows 98/ME/2000. As you can imagine…the latter machines tend to be down so often/unusable that they may as well not exist.</p>
<p>That’s not taking into account the abuse those machines they tend to receive from young kids, adolescents, impatient/irate adults, etc or the serious budget cuts many public library systems have experienced.</p>
<p>I live in Indiana, the strictest in the nation regarding voter ID. We are consistent in requiring identification, whether it be animals or people 
…for the Indiana State Fair, goat wethers (castrated males) have to be retina scanned by May 1st and does have to have proper identification papers from the national association. Other species have similar restrictions.</p>
<p>I am in agreement with the law. As stated elsewhere, intensive efforts were made to help those who needed an ID. I also don’t believe there are hordes of people out there who do not have an ID. I find it difficult to believe many people live without them.</p>
<p>As for those who stated their “states have no fraud”. Really? How do you know that? Maybe I live too close to Chicago…</p>
<p>In my state, banking is consistently more onerous than voting.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered why a high percentage of Americans simply don’t vote. I came to the conclusion that it’s because the non-voters had confidence that those that did vote were doing a quality job with their choices. (An alternate explanation was that the non-voters had no confidence that anyone’s vote made a difference … but even I’m not cynical enough to endorse that.)</p>
<p>One of the wonderful thing about America is the divergence of opinion on subjects. I think it gives us license to think about how things might be made better … and to voice those thoughts. When people start thinking that they shouldn’t be sharing their opinions … that’s when I start to get worried.</p>
<p>ignatius, a utility bill doesn’t normally include your signature. How would the utility company ever get my signature?? And as for the social security card, remember the loss of documents?</p>
<p>The last time I went to get my driver’s license I saw a desk with a worker doing nothing but trying to deal with irate people who couldn’t produce the required documents for various reasons.</p>
<p>As someone else said, when people say “oh, it’s so simple”, I get uneasy.</p>
<p>And Kajon, are you sure you can get birth info for people born in the 1950’s? I thought there was a law against the government giving out to the general public official info before at least 70 years passed. I thought that was why the 1940 census was only released April 2012, because they couldn’t release it before.</p>
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<p>I double-checked my source and this appears to be for a specific area in NY, rather than statewide. It seems like requirements may vary from region to region. In my case, I can’t recall precisely what it required but I definitely needed points of ID to retrieve my birth certificate, though I can’t recall which exactly because I just used some of what I had for going to get my permit later that day. I needed the birth certificate to get enough points of ID for the permit. I think what I had on me was two college bills, a social security card, my high school diploma, a school ID, and I needed the birth certificate to have enough to get the permit.</p>
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I agree that it isn’t easy. I just don’t accept that it can’t be at least easier.</p>
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You should move to NYC. It’s the same process for getting a license (obviously!), but the birth certificate is easy as can be. All done online or on the telephone and then mailed or couriered to you.</p>
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<p>Another idea is that for a large number of people there really isn’t a lot of difference in the candidates. Yes, they posture during the primaries and pander on occasion to the particular interests they are trying to curry favor with, but overall the differences aren’t worth the effort.</p>
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<p>From what I’ve heard in my limited sampling of acquaintances, friends, co-workers, classmates, neighbors, etc…reasons span the spectrum ranging from mundane laziness/apathy towards politics to the cynical feeling that their vote didn’t mean anything because of previous experiences with being disenfranchised…or having experienced polls being so poorly managed with late openings/early closings, unusable voting machines because they all somehow broke down in their area*, being given the runaround by surly poll workers who didn’t feel they were eligible…even when they produced photo ID, etc. </p>
<p>Incidentally, when I voted in the 2000 elections, the poll workers in my predominantly middle-class Boston area neighborhood dominated by grad students/young professionals said that I was only the second person under the age of 50 who came in to vote that entire day. And I arrived at around 7-ish straight from work…</p>
<ul>
<li>Heck, this happened in a few areas of NYC during the last presidential election which caused much fury and grumblings about how the new voting machine’s manufacturer must have been in the pockets of the then incumbent party. Didn’t help that they weren’t off the mark if public reports were to be believed.</li>
</ul>