POSTAL SERVICE: “BIRTH CERTIFICATE NOT ACCEPTABLE ID”
5-31-12
If you have a post office box in Madison, Florida and want to pay your annual renewal fee you may be asked to complete a United States Postal Service Form 1093 “Application for Post Office Box Service”. This form requires you also bring a photo identification card and one non-photo ID. On page one of the instructions it states, “NOTE: Social Security cards, credit cards, and birth certificates are not acceptable forms of ID”.
This reporter became aware of the ID requirements when he took a friend to the Madison post office on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 to check his mailbox after the Memorial Day holiday. He found a notice stapled to the Form 1093 in his box. The notice said the PO Box Application files were being updated and he would have to bring the completed Form 1093 and a photo ID and non-photo ID to the window clerk no later that Tuesday, May 29, 2012 (the day before he received the notice).
Here is the problem, my friend has no acceptable ID’s. The only photo ID’s the US Postal Service accepts are: 1) Valid driver’s license or state non-driver’s identification card (he has no car and has no driver’s license or state ID card). 2) Armed Forces, government, university, or recognized corporate identification card (he has never been in he military nor worked for the government, never worked for a corporation and is not in school). 3) Passport, passport card, alien registration card, or certificate of naturalization (he has never been out of the United States and was born in the USA).
Now the non-photo ID criteria was also problematic. Here are their acceptable documents: 1) Current lease, mortgage, or deed of trust (he has no lease, no mortgage, and he doesn’t know what a deed of trust is). 2) Voter or vehicle registration (he does not own a vehicle and is not a registered voter). 3) Home or vehicle insurance policy (he does not own a vehicle and cannot get home insurance).
My friend just wanted to renew the post office box he has used for decades. Because he does not have any of the acceptable identification cards or documents he cannot do this. He has lived all of his life in Madison, pays Federal income tax but cannot have a post office box! He does have a birth certificate–but that is not acceptable.
I never have to fill out anyhting when I renew my PO box. But then I have a Pinetta PO box. A whole different world that the Madison Post Office.
I see nothing wrong with this policy
I am convinced that this whole thing is an effort to exclude the less fortunate from voting because those less fortunate tend to vote Democrat. You think it is hard to get a po box? Try renewing a drivers license! And what do they ask for when you vote?
Madison’s rules are ridiculous!
Did a search and found where the USPS will allow people in FLORIDA to renew or reserve their PO BOX on line – hope this helps!!!
https://www.usps.com/manage/get-a-po-box.htm
Does anyone else find it the height of irony, not to mention hypocrisy, that the United States Post Office does not consider a birth certificate to be acceptable or adequate documentation? Mmm mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm!
did you happen to notice if this was some new law or federally mandated? The reason that I ask, is because I have heard talk around town that the post office doesn’t have enough po boxes to fit the need, and never will because there is no room to expand. Wonder if one the special people in town needs a po box. Hmmm. I wonder.
This is insane! His friend may help him put a mail box near where he lives! Heck with the P.O.
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” Charles Darwin