Georgia's Driver's License Controversy

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the situation, the Georgia state legislature recently passed a law that mandates some form of photo identification at voting polls. The idea, supposedly, is to stop voter fraud (that's the ticket!). Of course, the most commonly used form of photo identification is the driver's license. But what if there is a problem in the system that may cause you to lose your license? For the average citizen, that means trying to cut through some bureaucratic red tape in order to resolve the situation. But for Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, a vocal opponent of the measure, that meant a grand opportunity to get some significant media coverage on the issue. The AJC* reports:

While Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin was preparing last week to receive national recognition for political courage from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, she got a letter from Georgia transportation officials saying they didn't recognize her.

Franklin said the Department of Motor Vehicle Safety threatened Friday to cancel her recently renewed driver's license because her information didn't match its records.

"I got a letter [from DMVS] that said my Social Security number doesn't match the one they have on file, and they've had it for 30 years," Atlanta's well-known mayor said.

She said she recently used the number to pay her income taxes and had no problem. Her birthday was last week, and she renewed her driver's license by mail last month.
Franklin said the letter ordered her to fix the problem or face cancellation of her license on Sept. 6.

Without a license, she noted, under the new Georgia law requiring voter identification, she would be unable to vote in the upcoming November election — even for herself — unless she votes by absentee ballot.

You can read more about the law at BfD's repost of the original New York Times article. Classist injustice I say. Georgia's DMV facilities are notorious for being bureaucratic wastes of time; so much so that Governor Purdue proposed new measures to hasten driver's license lines in his State of the State address (of all places). Even a recent AJC.com poll made light of that fact (to paraphrase, you know a person is an out-of-towner when they think they renew their driver's license during their lunch break).

Working class Georgians certainly do not have the time it takes to wait in these long lines, especially with inflexible work situations and families. Even weekends aren't always available; in my experience as an employee in Lithonia Lighting's warehouse, we had to work Saturdays and Sundays because of "mandatory overtime." Not to mention that despite Atlanta's overwhelming traffic problem, those that live within the city of Atlanta, like most American large cities, still use public transporation as their primary means of getting about. They certainly are not likely to have a license, nor is it likely that they would be willing to go through the process simply to take part in a process that many of them feel does not work in their best interests anyways.

Its sickening legislation, but thankfully, the incident with Mayor Franklin's happened to someone with enough importance to make this an even bigger issue than it seems to be.

*The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requires free registration to read articles.