My wife and I just renewed our expired passports.

[MineralMan]

36. That's very relevant.

We're smart and educated, here on DU. It's hard sometimes to realize how many people are neither of those things. For them, not having such documents or the knowledge needed to get them can be a huge stumbling block. It's going to get worse and worse for those people, frankly.

Voting is a huge issue, especially in states with Voter ID laws that are designed to deny the right to vote for just such people.

If you want a certified copy of your birth certificate, you need to know not only the city where your were born, but the county, as well, since such records are recorded by counties. Then, you have to know how to get a copy. In many cases, you get it from the state if you were born before some certain year, or the county if you were born after that year. Then, you have to get an application form, either online or by mail, fill it out and pay a fee for a certified copy of your birth certificate.

Some people have their original birth certificate. I do. Most people do not, and have to get a certified copy before they can get Real ID, a passport or whatever. Some people never had a birth certificate. Their birth was never recorded. That happens in many rural areas, particularly in some states.

For most of us who read DU, such things are not a problem. You can get the information you need by searching for it. For others, though, it can be impossible without help. One of the things local Democratic Party organizations should be doing is setting up local clearing houses to assist people with those problems and helping them to obtain the documents they need. There are people in every city, county and every state who cannot document themselves without help, and sometimes a lot of help.

This would be a good project for local colleges, I think. Offer credit for working to help people with documentation. Make it a requirement for degrees in the Social Sciences, Political Science, Education and some other majors to spend a semester working in a clearing house that does that. The knowledge learned would be useful to the students as well.