Creation of street addresses and basic existence

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WalkaboutTed

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/opinion/sunday/north-dakota-addresses-voting-id.html

This is an interesting article about the evolution of street addresses. Also about the fact that people who have no street address assigned to them can be excluded from banking and other widely accepted privileges (no duh, eh?).   And if you have no address in North Dakota, you will likely be legally disenfranchised.  

Meanwhile, am in Junction, TX. The navigator (Hubby) said "There's an RV park near here".  I said "Uhhhhh Hon? The park washed away last week, along with 4 campers".  I'm glad that the sound of diesel engines is a soporific to me.
Ted
 
Thanks Ted,
This was well written, and though I've thought about the history of mailing letters before, I've not thought about the actual history of officially naming and numbering the houses on any particular road.

It's interesting to see how vague some addresses on old letters used to be. "General delivery" was a thing. Some of my grandma's old envelopes have her address listed as "rural route, deer river, MN." Deer river was at least 25 miles away. I imagine that mail carrier had to know everybody around here!

I wonder what they would've done back then, if employers demanded a specific residence address in order to give someone a job? Or to start a savings account? Or to vote? They probably would've thought that person was nuts.

~angie

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sort of a lame story. Mixing up all kinds of things even getting historic details wrong. There is house numbering, who gets counted in the census, and what address to use to register to vote, and the Rebublicrats are purging the voter rolls. When working as a poll worker there were people registered to vote using a homeless shelter, a welfare office, a park bench, and other such 'street' addresses. The worse is the black paint. Boiled bones make soup. You need Burnt Bones to make very fine, very black charcoal. Mixed with a oxidizing oil, such as linseed, that makes a black as all black paint.
 
Because of a few somewhat recent law changes in ND, the legalities of using a claimed address is exactly what has happened.

Here's a bit of a fact check on some of the claims made in the article in the OP (though not a response to the article itself, the subject does overlap) https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/north-dakota-native-american-voters/

See especially the paragraphs labelled "2013-2016: New voter ID restrictions" as they specifically cover the changes to the law, and which addresses are now officially recognized under the law for the purpose of voting.

~angie



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In Nicaragua and Costa Rica, there are no street names and no house numbers. Your mailing address is something like "From where the old hospital used to be, go two blocks north, turn right, and it's the third house on the left".

It may sound clunky, but it seems to work well for them.

One thing I liked about Costa Rica is that everyone everywhere is constitutionally guaranteed access to electricity, water and sewer. That means if you live on a tiny little hand-hewn farm on the side of a volcano way the hell out in the jungle, they will run utility lines all the way out there just for you. And they'll build a school for you if there are at least five kids in the area.
 
At one time, I understand if someone frequented a specific area including a street corner or a park, they could declare that location as their residence in order to register to vote.
 
This will need to evolve as more people adopt the nomadic lifestyle. I believe it will but perhaps not in my lifetime.
 
The trend is to disenfranchise the poors, as much as they can get away with it.

Hundreds of thousands of voters have been removed from the electoral rolls (e.g. 53,000 in Georgia, 70,000 in North Dakota) and will turn up to vote on November 6th only to find themselves turned away.

In North Dakota the Native Americans have been disenfranchised en masse because the voter ID requirement includes a street address which the reservations often don't have.
 
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