Voter ID laws are all over the place. Very wide deviations from one state to the next, and every state has different ideas about what counts as an acceptable form of identification (they don't always have to be government issued photo identification cards). Of the states that require ID for voting, the following also provide a method to get a free ID to use for voting (although it's possible I missed one or two):
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
That would be the 'logical' solution, but the party that wants voter ID is not trying to do something logical.
It wants to prevent people who don't currently have it from voting. So they demand ID, without making it possible/easier to get. (And when they do make it possible/easier to get, its only in their political strongholds - or they explicitly disqualify particular kinds of state-issued ID from being used to vote.)
Selective disenfranchisement is the whole point of the policy, not an unfortunate, unforeseen, unpredictable side effect. If you'd like to learn more about the history of this, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow are a good primer on the motivations behind it. Those motivations haven't gone anywhere, because the cultural struggle in question has never actually been resolved.
> So they demand ID, without making it possible/easier to get.
Great, have congress legislate laws to make it easier/free to obtain passports. Instead of requiring folks to travel to DMV/Post office/etc., why not have federal public servants visit them door-to-door and assist in issuing it? We do it for census, so what's preventing them from doing it for passports?
rascul|4 years ago
Voter ID laws are all over the place. Very wide deviations from one state to the next, and every state has different ideas about what counts as an acceptable form of identification (they don't always have to be government issued photo identification cards). Of the states that require ID for voting, the following also provide a method to get a free ID to use for voting (although it's possible I missed one or two):
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state
vkou|4 years ago
That would be the 'logical' solution, but the party that wants voter ID is not trying to do something logical.
It wants to prevent people who don't currently have it from voting. So they demand ID, without making it possible/easier to get. (And when they do make it possible/easier to get, its only in their political strongholds - or they explicitly disqualify particular kinds of state-issued ID from being used to vote.)
Selective disenfranchisement is the whole point of the policy, not an unfortunate, unforeseen, unpredictable side effect. If you'd like to learn more about the history of this, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow are a good primer on the motivations behind it. Those motivations haven't gone anywhere, because the cultural struggle in question has never actually been resolved.
josephh|4 years ago
Great, have congress legislate laws to make it easier/free to obtain passports. Instead of requiring folks to travel to DMV/Post office/etc., why not have federal public servants visit them door-to-door and assist in issuing it? We do it for census, so what's preventing them from doing it for passports?
dahfizz|4 years ago
If the opposing party wanted to be logical, they would just make IDs free and easy. Especially while they are running the government.
pessimizer|4 years ago
Wouldn't this be the responsibility of the government in power, and not require any participation from the opposition?
distrill|4 years ago