I swear, it isn’t pick on Jeff week, but sometimes I just can’t help myself 
In one of his recent posts, he said the following:
If IDs for voter are required then whatever state is requiring them needs to take all of the steps necessary to make getting an ID insanely painless. That’s not the case where I live and I doubt it’s the case in many states. Going down to the Department of Motor Vehicles is a big giant pain in the ass. It costs money and time. If the process of getting an ID continues to be hard it will stop people from voting. The cost right now is essentially a small poll tax. Requiring IDs for voting also puts us on the path to having a national ID card. Another thing I think is a bad idea.
Okay… To wit, from today’s New York Times, here’s Indiana’s law:
The Indiana law, adopted by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2005 without a single Democratic vote, is regarded as the strictest in the country. It requires a voter to present a photograph as part of an unexpired document issued either by Indiana or the federal government, a requirement that in most cases can be satisfied only by a current driver’s license or a passport. The state’s motor vehicle agency provides a free photo ID card for people who do not drive, but obtaining it requires a “primary document” like an original birth certificate or a passport.
Would-be voters without proper identification may cast a provisional ballot that will be counted only if they appear within 10 days at a county clerk’s office and present acceptable photo identification or, alternatively, swear either that they are indigent or that they have a religious objection to being photographed.
Seems like they’ve taken everything into account in making sure that the poor people who show up to vote, can. I had a discussion about this once with some Canadian friends of mine, and I was told that it’s laughable that we don’t have ID requirements for our elections because they do. In a very common sense way, my very liberal Canadian friend told me outright that it makes sense to make sure that a person who’s casting a ballot is actually a person who’s allowed to do so.
I tend to agree.
While I understand Jeff’s point (that this will make voting harder for some people), I don’t see that as more important than keeping dead people from voting, as an example (Google it; it happens a lot more regularly than you think and has been investigated by various metropolitan news outlets over the past few years). That to me makes making the process slightly more difficult worthwhile.
The idea that a government-issued photo ID is a luxury is laughable. You can’t do anything in this country without a government ID, so it’s not outrageous to say that most people probably already have some form of government issued state or federal ID. If you live in NYC, for example, and you’re so poor that you need benefits, guess what? Your benefit card has your photo on it. So does your military ID.
In Indiana, you have to validate your identity before you get your card, which means you have to have a birth certificate or a passport (or, contrary to the story in the Times, approximately 10 other forms of proof) , and if you can’t afford a card, they give you one as long as you can prove who you are! Oh, and if you don’t qualify for the free one, the card is $13 and $10 if you’re a senior. This isn’t a poll tax, and it isn’t a way of keeping the poor out of the voting booth. It’s a way of maintaining the integrity of our elections.
It would be interesting to see a few interviews with people who are so poor that they can’t afford to get a $13 ID card. I’d be willing to bet they live pretty well and have no problem spending $10 on Burger King or some other wasteful shit. I’ve seen it first hand; in my neighborhood, there’s a Pathmark store, and at the Pathmark, people dressed better than me use their EBT cards to buy food.
Yeah, they don’t all do that, but if they’re that poor, they probably get the card for nothing making this a moot point anyway.