Photo ID laws hurt voters
The Supreme Court recently upheld an Indiana law that required voters to present either a driver's license or a passport in order to vote.
There are two kinds of voters in America: People have at least one of those documents, and people who don't. The people who don't are the ones the Republicans don't want voting anyway.
Chris Rabb of Afro-Netizen writes:
On the surface, it seems like a pretty reasonable ruling: folks need to prove who they are when they go to vote to avoid potential voter fraud. The reality is that what is reasonable for many white collar and blue collar voters is not so reasonable for those invisible Americans who have not earned that amorphous moniker of "middle class".
These invisible souls are our country's poorest citizens who do not travel internationally (and thus, do no have passports) and who often cannot afford to own cars, the insurance on them or the gas in them (and thus, are far less likely to have a driver's license).
The fact that this quietly pernicious law may become federal law one day if Democrats capitulate is one matter of concern. The other is how this may impact next month's Indiana Democratic primary (and elections beyond this season) is quite another, given that the poor tend to be disproportionately Black and Democratic.
The groups most likely to be disenfranchised by restrictive photo ID rules are young voters, minorities, the elderly, and the poor. These are legitimate, registered voters who have a right to cast a ballot at their local polling place.
The problem is that neither a passport, nor a driver's license is issued automatically like an SSN card or a birth certificate. It's something a person has to go out and get. Moreover, passports and driver's licenses cost money. You have to pay to get them and pay to renew them.
If passports and driver's licenses are the only acceptable form of ID for voting, then Indiana has effectively instituted a poll tax that you pay at the DMV or the passport office.