09/25/2005   English German
  Edition # 56  
San Francisco, 09-25-2005

Bureaucracy in the Space Age

Angelika After five years, a California driver's license expires and you have to apply for a new one. It's a mere formality. The responsible authority, the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), has quite a bad reputation, but recently it hasn't been as slow and disorganized as generally assumed. I received a letter by mail stating that a new driver's license needed to be applied for, and this could be done either by sending a form to the DMV by mail or, brand new, via the internet. I'm always up for modern conveniences, so I went to http://www.dmv.ca.gov , where I not only found a button for "Online Driver License Renewal" but also could immediately enter the number included with the letter, quickly confirmed that my eyesight is still reasonably good, paid $25 by credit card through a secure browser connection, and that was it. To my great surprise, the new driver's license arrived by mail just three days later. That's how I like dealing with bureaucracy!

Figure [1]: The homepage of the Department of Motor Vehicles

With the request to renew the driver's license, a form was included to register as a voter. In America, there is no mandatory registration, and when someone moves to another state, they first apply for a new driver's license there. To be eligible to vote in the next election, one must register as a voter in that state, and conveniently, the motor vehicle registration authority handles this.

However, you are only allowed to do that if you are an American citizen. We, on the other hand, are still German citizens, even though the immigration authority has recognized us as "Permanent Resident Aliens." The form in Figure 2 also states that there are severe penalties for providing false information.

Figure [2]: The form to register as a voter
RSS Feed
Mailing Liste
Impressum
Mike Schilli Monologues

Get announcements for new editions

New editions of this publication appear in somewhat random intervals. To receive a brief note when they're available in your mailbox (about once every two months on average), you can register your email on the 'usarundbrief' Google Groups list.

Your email address
All Editions:

 

Send us a comment
We'd like to hear from you, please send us feedback if you want to comment on the content or have suggestions for future topics.

Simply write your your message into the text box below. If you'd like a response from us, please also leave your email. If you want to stay anonymous, simply put 'anonymous' into the email field. This way we'll get the message, but we have no way to respond to you.

Your email address

Message
 
Contact the authors
Latest update: 11-Dec-2025