Data Elements | Database Architecture | Data-Sharing Capabilities
All state department of motor vehicles driver’s license/non-driver ID databases have the following data elements relevant to universal voter registration: (1) full name; (2) date of birth; (3) address; (4) a unique driver’s license/ID number; and (5) Social Security number.[1] The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), of which all 50 states and the District of Columbia are members, sets minimum standards for the data elements collected from driver’s license and ID applicants.[2]
A sixth data element essential to voter registration is citizenship status. All states issue driver’s licenses to at least some noncitizens, though the prevailing model is for states to restrict the issuance of driver’s licenses to citizens and lawfully present immigrants.[3] A total of forty-seven states and the District of Columbia have such a restriction; thirty-two states[4] have a legal requirement that applicants must prove that they are citizens or lawfully present immigrants before receiving a driver’s license or non-driver ID, and the other fifteen states[5] and the District of Columbia have a de facto lawful presence requirement created by requiring applicants to provide identity documents only available to citizens and lawfully present immigrants. Three states, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Washington, do not require lawful presence information from driver’s license applicants.
In many of the states with the legal or de facto lawful presence requirements described above, the department of motor vehicles requires separate forms of documentary proof of identity or lawful presence from citizens and noncitizens. Fifteen states[6] require citizens to present documents that affirm their citizenship, such as a U.S. passport, naturalization certificate, or U.S. birth certificate. These states do not allow citizens to present documents like Social Security cards or military IDs, which are available to both citizens and lawfully present immigrants. At least eight additional states[7] require motor vehicle administrators to indicate the documents provided by applicants to prove legal status on the application or in a searchable field of the department of motor vehicles database, which agencies could potentially use to sort out applicants who presented documents available to citizens only.
Other states collect citizenship information in other ways. Twenty-two states[8] and the District of Columbia require driver’s license applicants or the DMV clerk to check a box on the application form or in the computerized application system to indicate the applicant’s citizenship status; seven of those states also require citizens to provide documentation affirming their citizenship status. [9]
In order to automatically cull lists of voting-eligible citizens from driver’s license and non-driver ID lists, states must not only collect citizenship information; they must also retain it in an electronic format. The Brennan Center’s research on the architecture of state department of motor vehicles databases is extremely preliminary, but we have established that at least eleven state[10] driver’s license and non-driver ID databases do have a citizenship data element or a searchable field that indicates the form of documentary proof presented by applicants.
In total, thirty states and the District of Columbia collect citizenship information from driver’s license applicants.[11] See the chart and map attached as Appendices A and B, respectively, for more detail.
Every state’s department of motor vehicles database is different, but national trends in database design provide a general outline of the structure of most driver’s license/non-driver ID databases. According to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), most states[12] are currently in the process of replacing aging legacy systems with new, customer-concentric databases that link all department of motor vehicle records – not just licensing information, but also automobile titles and other services provided by the department – to individuals.[13] While some states[14] have attempted to build databases based on other states’ systems, most states have elected to work with third-party vendors[15] to build customized systems.[16] That states are currently in the process of updating their motor vehicles databases may facilitate the transition to a modernized voter registration system in two ways. First, states that are in the process of updating their databases can easily build in features that make it easier to collect, share, and update the data necessary to register voters, and second, the new systems to which most states are migrating are more easily modified to include new data elements and capabilities,[17] making it easier to alter preexisting databases to accomplish these objectives.
Through AAMVA, state departments of motor vehicles can already share information from their driver’s license and non-driver ID databases to a variety of other government agencies. As mandated by the Help America Vote Act, every state department of motor vehicles driver’s license database can share information with voter registration databases for the purposes of verifying voter identity. Every state department of motor vehicles currently uses AAMVA’s Help America Vote Verification application, which allows motor vehicle administrators to submit voter registration records from election authorities to the Social Security Administration to match registrant data to Social Security records. AAMVA also offers an Electronic Verification of Vital Events Records application, which allows motor vehicle administrators to verify information on birth certificates provided by applicants as proof of identity. Both of these examples involve bidirectional communication between the department of motor vehicles and the other agency’s database.
State departments of motor vehicles share information with other government agencies in much the same way they would with state elections authorities under a system of voter registration modernization. Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia automatically transfer information on males between the ages of 18 and 25 to the Selective Service System when the department updates those individuals’ records in the driver’s licensing database.[18] In a handful of states,[19] men have the freedom to choose whether they are automatically registered, and the Department of Motor Vehicles does not send their information to the Selective Service System unless they check a box indicating their consent.
Automatic Selective Service registration is managed through an AAMVA program called the Selective Service Registration Application, which automatically sends data on eligible males from the state department of motor vehicles to the Selective Service System.[20] The software sends information to the Selective Service System by way of AAMVA’s Unified Network Interface, which edits driver’s licensing data to isolate the data elements used in Selective Service Registration, puts the information in the proper format, and forwards it directly to the Selective Service System’s registrant database.[21] Individuals who are not in the Selective Service System registrant file are automatically registered; if an individual is already in the database, the system automatically updates his address information if necessary.[22] After this transaction, the AAMVA software returns either a confirmation message or an error message to the department of motor vehicles.[23] This data transfer is unidirectional; departments of motor vehicles cannot access Selective Service System data.
Most states also have internal data sharing programs that allow the department of motor vehicles to share information from its database with other government agencies for purposes such as law enforcement and summoning residents from jury duty.[24] Some states also have driver’s licenses databases that are already integrated with their voter registration databases.[25]
[1] The collection of Social Security numbers is mandated by 42 U.S.C. § 666 (a)(13). Given that the information contained within department of motor vehicles databases is associated with a unique driver’s license or non-driver ID number, the Social Security number is essentially unnecessary for the purposes of voter registration, but this information is nevertheless available.
[2] See AAMVA Uniform ID Subcommittee – UID7 Task Group, American Association for Motor Vehicle Administrators, Personal Identification – AAMVA International Specification – DL/ID Card Design (March 2005).
[3] See chart attached as Appendix A.
[4] The states with a legal requirement are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
[5] The states with a de facto requirement are Alaska, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Texas, and West Virginia.
[6] These states are Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
[7] These states are Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, and Virginia. An additional four states – Alabama, Kansas, Michigan, and North Carolina – include information about the form of documentary proof provided by applicants in their databases, but these fields are not searchable.
[8] The twenty two states that have citizenship checkboxes on their driver’s license application forms are Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
[9] The states that require both documentary proof of citizenship and a citizenship checkbox on the driver’s license application are Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
[10] These states are Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, and Ohio.
[11] The seven states that the Brennan Center has confirmed do not require documentary proof of citizenship or ask for an applicant’s citizenship status on a driver’s license application are California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Virginia.
[12] States currently in the process of updating their databases includes Montana, Washington, California, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, Minnesota, Virginia, Vermont, Kansas, and Idaho. Telephone Interview with Sheila Prior, Vice President, American Assn. of Motor Vehicles Region IV (Mar. 23, 2009) [hereinafter Sheila Prior Interview].
[13] Id.
[14] Montana and Iowa, for example, have both attempted to base their systems on other states’ databases.
[15] The number of vendors is relatively small – 5 or 6 vendors supply the vast majority of commercially available software. Sheila Prior Interview, supra note 13.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] The 35 states with automatic registration laws that use the AAMVA software are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia also use the software to conform with their own automatic registration laws. Laws Linking SSS Registration to State Driver’s License Applications, https://www.sss.gov/FSdrivers.htm (last visited Jan. 29, 2009).
[19] The states that allow applicants to opt in to or out of Selective Service registration are New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia.
[20] AAMVA: Selective Service Registration, http://www.aamva.org/TechServices/AppServ/SSR/ (last visited Jan. 29, 2009) [hereinafter AAMVA].
[21] Id; See also Integrated Justice Information Services Institute, Technology Assistance Report: American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators 10 (Apr. 2006).
[22] AAMVA, supra note 20.
[23] Id.
[24] Sheila Prior Interview, supra note 12.
[25] Michigan and Arizona have this structure, as may other states.