Have New Year’s resolutions? REAL ID should be one of them, SC officials say
A new decade starts in a few days, and South Carolina officials have at least one New Year’s resolution they want added to your list.
Get the state’s new driver’s license and identification card — otherwise known as the REAL ID.
“Any place I go, somebody comes up and says, ‘I’m going to get around to it,’” Kevin Shwedo, director of the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, told state officials last month. “If you wait until next July, you may be there all day.”
South Carolinians planning to board a domestic flight after Sept. 29, 2020, or enter a federal building or military installation after October, will be required to show the new identification card. A passport can be used as an alternative to take a commercial flight.
So far, the state has issued more than one million REAL ID cards, estimating more than 1.6 million people will have one by October.
The new cards are $25, and can be identified by the gold star on the card’s right-hand corner.
Cards are available at all 66 S.C. DMV locations, or online scdmvonline.com.
Unless documents already are on file, to get the card license holders will need:
▪ A government-issued birth certificate or U.S. passport.
▪ Proof of a Social Security number.
▪ Two proofs of a current S.C. address.
▪ Records of any name changes.
The new ID card is not necessary to drive, vote or apply for or to get federal benefits. South Carolinians also will not need the REAL ID card to enter a post office, get services at a hospital or serve on a federal jury or testify in federal court.
The DMV offers a non-REAL ID license, which says on the card, “not for federal identification.”
State officials say they anticipate about 40% of the state’s eligible population that can get the REAL ID will have one by the time the deadline approaches. That worries DMV officials, who say a now 7-minute line ultimately could turn into hours.
“The bad news is is that we’re not nearly getting as many people signed up for REAL ID as we should,” Shwedo said. “The federal government now is dealing with the fact that TSA (Transportation Security Administration) ... and Homeland Security believes that on the first of October of next year that they will have has many as one million people turned around every day at checkpoints (nationally).”
