What does Maine’s same-day voter registration controversy have in common with a recent scandal involving mailing of $600 million in pension checks to deceased federal workers? Both would probably become nonissues, if this country had a compulsory national identity card system.

Although I believe firmly in the importance of preserving civil liberties, I part company with many like-minded folks on the issue of a national identity card,  “NIC” or short.

NIC is hardly burning issue at the moment, with public attention focused on high unemployment and plunging stock and housing prices. But it’s a potential solution for other priority problems on the national agenda – like fighting crime, terrorism, illegal immigration and fraud.

The very mention of a national identity card sends chills up the spine of most civil libertarians. It conjures images of jack-booted Nazis demanding harshly, “Show me your papers,” of late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s secret dossiers on innocent Americans, of wholesale governmental wiretapping, bugging and surveillance, of McCarthyism.

For those who fear loss of privacy and anonymity, consider that we already have precious little left of either  — thanks to the internet and private enterprise.

By paying a $39.95 fee, anyone can go to an online service, look me up, and, according to the website blurb, learn plenty about my life, including: contact information, address history, age and date of birth, names of relatives, household members and neighbors; criminal convictions (fortunately I have none); bankruptcies, liens or judgments (none of those either); and information on property ownership, business interests, and professional status.

Courtesy of Google, the public can see a map of the street where I live and aerial views of my home for free. Merchants — whether internet, catalog or big-box retailers — probably have substantial data on my buying preferences. Using Facebook, MySpace or other social networking sites, I could, if I wished, fill cyberspace with detailed drivel about my comings, goings and daily activities.

So why shouldn’t government employ digital technology’s information bonanza for legitimate public purposes?

We’re no longer a small, rural nation of 4 million, as during the first Census of 1790 when government record-keeping and government itself was, for the most part, a simple, local affair. We’re a continental colossus of 300 million — urbanized, complex, mobile, interconnected and vulnerable to many dangers.

A national identity card could be an invaluable tool for deterring, detecting and investigating unlawful activities that prey on those vulnerabilities, particularly when used in conjunction with other public databases.

An NIC system could be structured in any number of ways.

Cards could be issued by the federal government or by each state. They could be required for a U.S. citizen or resident above a specified minimum age. They could uniquely identify the bearer, not only by listing routine information, such as name, address, date of birth, place of birth, height, weight, eye and hair color, and citizenship status, but by including a photograph and one or more biometric components, such as fingerprints, iris patterns or DNA.

Presentation of such a card might be required in order to obtain a driver’s license, register a motor vehicle, rent a car, board a plane, train, or interstate bus, enroll in a college or university, open a bank account, take out a bank loan, obtain employment, join the military, qualify for public benefits or apply for a passport.

At the bearer’s death, the card would be cancelled.

If everyone was mandated to carry an NIC, and the information contained on those cards was kept updated and digitally stored in a central databank, it could be cross-checked against other public databases, such as voter registration rolls and death records.

Among other things, an NIC system would allow Maine’s GOP chairman, Charles Webster, to sleep soundly, secure in the knowledge that same-day voter registration would not become a free pass to “vote early and vote often,” and it would avoid hundreds of millions in benefit checks from being sent to mail boxes of dead federal employees.

It could also help stem the tide of illegal immigration. Many immigrants might not risk crossing the border illegally if, on the other side, they couldn’t get jobs, obtain government benefits or travel without possessing a national identity card.

Right now, every state has its own form of required identification, primarily motor vehicle licenses and state ID’s for nondrivers, but these are far from tamper-proof.

Maine’s driver’s licenses include a head-and-shoulders photograph and data about the holder’s residential address, date of birth, height and weight, sex, hair and eye color. That’s pretty good identification. Still, a license is valid for six years at a stretch, and lots can change in that time, including address and physical appearance. In addition, without biometrics for verification, a driver’s license could be forged or altered and used, at least temporarily, by someone up to mischief.

Social Security cards are sometimes used for identification as well, but the cards, designed in the 1930s, contain nothing more than a name, signature and number. Forging another’s Social Security card would be child’s play for an identity thief. Passports can also be used for ID, but fewer people possess them and they’re likewise susceptible to forgery. In fact, the Social Security Administration and Passport Office would be wise to adopt NIC-type safeguards.

There are certainly formidable, though not insurmountable, challenges to initiating an NIC system. First, it would be expensive to create and maintain. Second, not all voter registration records, vital statistics and other potential data link-ups to such a system have yet been digitalized or made available online. Finally, and most importantly, the security of the system and privacy of card holders would have to be protected from hackers and the card’s uses carefully limited and defined by law to prevent misuse by authorities.

Does NIC sound like a page out of Orwell’s “1984” or Huxley’s “Brave New World”?

I’ve got a news flash: Advanced technology has been creating a brave new world for decades, so we may as well harness that technology to the public interest.