and the clerks are required to make notations with their initials also showing who made the correction and the date- all becomes part of the indexes permanent entry.

Now this is a very good solution and one that I hope other states will adopt. I've been pushing for this in Texas for some time now.

there is a much greater chance of your ID being stolen from your local bank, restaurant or trash container-

This simply isn't true Steve. You may find it comfortable to believe this myth but the fact is, there is a huge difference between a handful of identities that may or may not be found in a trash bin and millions of identities intentionally and permanently published worldwide via the web.

Michael is right. Online websites do nothing to serve the taxpayer but massively exposes them to harm. The sites serve every taxpayer's sensitive information to anyone-anywhere in the world that wants to sit at home and download as many identies as they want or use the information in any way they want.

ID theft did not start with on line systems- and will not end with them either

You are correct ID theft has always been a problem. It only became a massive problem and what the FBI calls "the fastest growing crime in America" once it became possible to electronically distribute millions of identies instantantly across the world. The problem was first identified in 1989 the case of the TV Actress Rebecca Shaeffer who was murdered by a stalker who hired a private investigator to electronically access her DMV files and retrieve her home address. Responsible federal legislators reacted in 1993 with the motor vehicle act that makes it illegal for companies to buy driver records from state governments. The law targets anyone who "knowingly obtains, discloses or uses personal information from a motor vehicle record". 

Even before this, birth records were declared private when it was found that a handfull of identity thieves were cross referencing birth and death records to find someone who would be about their age if they had lived and assume the identity of the deceased.

Today, millions of identies are stolen. Both thieves and law enforcement investigators are documenting that the source IS online government records.

You are right. Taking the document images offline will not end ID theft. But it will put an end to local governments complicity in the crime and relegate the criminals to once again digging through trash bins for the information they need.