A suggestion for voters who actually go to the polls and cast a vote in person: When the poll worker asks you for I.D and you pull out your drivers license, ask them if they would have accepted your license if it read “LIMITED TERM” across the top.
Spoiler: The answer will be “yes, we accept all Georgia drivers licenses.”
Because that’s the law.
“Section 21-2-417 – Presentation of proper identification to poll workers; “…each elector shall present proper identification to a poll worker at or prior to completion of a voter’s certificate at any polling place and prior to such person’s admission to the enclosed space at such polling place. Proper identification shall consist of any one of the following: (1) A Georgia driver’s license which was properly issued by the appropriate state agency…”
There is nothing in Georgia law that excludes the “LIMITED TERM” drivers license or state ID card from being regarded as “proper identification’ at the polls.
What are the LIMITED TERM drivers licenses and official state ID Cards?
They are the driving/ID credentials issued to non-U.S. citizens by Georgia’s Dept. of Drivers Services (DDS). This includes students here on temporary visas, Mercedes Benz executives on visas – and illegal aliens who are still benefitting from the protections of deferred deportation proceedings illegally conferred by Barack Obama in 2012 as part of his pandering re-election campaign.
There have been several attempts under the Gold Dome to rectify this needless lapse in common sense and security. None of them were allowed to pass.
The most recent try was in 2021 with HB 228 sponsored by Cherokee County Republican Rep. Charlice Byrd and an impressive list of powerful cosponsors. The bill was well-written and simple. It would have added wording to the law that excluded drivers licenses and ID Cards issued to foreigners. The bill would have added words across the top of the credentials that read: ‘BEARER NOT A U.S. CITIZEN — NOT VOTER ID’.” For mail in voting protections the legislation would have required DDS to create a document numbering system in which all non-citizen’s document numbers began with “NC” alerting all concerned to the non-citizens status of the bearer.
Readers may remember the climate of the nation, state and legislative session in 2021 after the 2020 election results. The short end of this story is that HB 228 was not allowed so much as a vote in the House Special Committee on Election Integrity. We had to fight to even get an abbreviated, Friday PM hearing. Taking a goofy talking point from the far-left, Republican opponents told us the change would be branding non-citizens with a “Scarlett Letter.”
The bill died after much push back by Ryan Germany, then General Counsel at the Georgia Secretary of State office.
- Related reading: That’s not accurate, Mr. Germany: Fact checking Ryan Germany, General Counsel to Georgia’s SoS on his testimony on HB 228
Voters may want to ask their Republican legislators to reintroduce the bill and easily solve a needless – and mindless – lapse in security.
I end by suggesting readers check out the star in the righthand corner of the current LIMITED TERM drivers license issued in Georgia. That denotes it is REAL ID Act compliant. It’s not only U.S. citizens who are given that status on their licenses.
REAL ID Act approval allows the bearer to enter nuclear power facilities, federal buildings and to board airliners in the post- 9/11 America. Google it.
