Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 30, 1993                   TAG: 9303300395
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VOTING

Indeed, for many it may be a convenience. It gives them one less thing to try to remember than if the state's voter-registration system assigned numbers of its own.

But it bothered Marc Alan Greidinger enough to, literally, make a federal case of it - and win. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week against the state and in favor of the 29-year-old Fredericksburg lawyer.

The legal problem, said the court, is that giving your Social Security number to register in Virginia is mandatory and is also included on voter lists open to public inspection, including to commercial interests. Those interests thereby can gain access to people's financial, medical and other personal information.

Voting lists are, and should remain, public. But they should not have to include Social Security numbers: If 38 other states can get by without requiring Social Security numbers for a resident to register to vote, why must Virginia?

The key here is rights vs. privileges. If a grocery store wants your Social Security number on your check and you don't like it, you can pay in cash or transfer your trade. But to be registered to vote in Virginia, you have to provide the number - and if you're not registered, you can't vote.

As impediments to voting in Virginia go, requiring registrants to provide their Social Security numbers - and the availability of those numbers to anyone who wants to look - are probably far down on the list. Still, the requirement bespeaks a more general attitude incorporated in Virginia's registration laws: that voting is somehow a privilege, not the fundamental right it ought to be.