Updating Georgia DDS (Department of Driver Services)

[anxiouscdn2]

As some older threads have mentioned, newly naturalized Georgia residents need to visit DDS to update their citizenship status. Otherwise, if you register to vote but don't update your driver's license information, when you go to vote you'll be obliged to cast a provisional ballot. This is because in Georgia, the driver's license database is used as the record of citizenship status for voting.

So, I put off visiting DDS but finally got around to it this week, since my driver's license was about to expire. I took along my US passport and (because I tend to over-prepare) my naturalization certificate as well. At the counter, I told the clerk of my change of citizenship and handed over the passport. To my surprise she said "Oh, we don't accept a passport. We need the actual naturalization certificate, sorry." I then produced the naturalization certificate, and all went well.

I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't had the certificate with me. However, I thought I should post to alert others that it's best to take your naturalization certificate to the Georgia DDS.

This experience also made me think of my teenage driving daughter, who recently received her certificate of US citizenship via N600. She received her driver's license when she was an LPR and she hasn't yet visited the DDS to update her citizenship status with them, either. (She may as well wait until she turns 18, when she'll need to upgrade the license class anyway.) When she does go to the DDS, I'll tell her to take her citizenship certificate. But if we hadn't filed N600, she wouldn't have a certificate. Seems like that could be a problem.

 

[König]

Did you change your name during naturalisation? On their website, it says that a valid passport can be used as a proof of citizenship and proof of identity.

 

[anxiouscdn2]

Did you change your name during naturalisation? On their website, it says that a valid passport can be used as a proof of citizenship and proof of identity.

Nope, I have the same completely conventional English first-middle-last that I've had since marriage (almost 30 years ago) and that's on all my legal documentation. I just looked up the DDS website http://www.dds.ga.gov/drivers/DLdata.aspx?con=1741541737&ty=dl and I see you are correct about US passport being accepted. Naturally, I don't know what would have happened at the DDS had I not had my naturalization certificate on hand and tried to press for them to accept my passport. Maybe somebody reading this thread will be able to enlighten us.

Here's what I think about the inconsistency between the website and what the clerk said to me. I think that if somebody walks into the DDS, having never previously held a Georgia DL, and shows a US passport for ID, it's accepted without any problem. My impression, from my experience, is that things are a little different if you already have a Georgia DL that was obtained while you were not a US citizen, and you now want to update your status with them to US citizen. It seemed that they are very wary of altering non-citizens to citizens in their database, and their practice is to demand the naturalization certificate as proof that your status changed. The clerk mentioned that they want to see the actual date on which you became a citizen, and that's not in the passport.

Of course, there's no driving-related reason, to my mind, why the Georgia DDS should need to know the date on which one became a citizen. However, the State of Georgia is pretty paranoid about non-citizens voting. I suspect this practice of requiring the certificate is some kind of anti-fraud measure, at least in their minds.