I don't even know why this is downvoted. Standard technique in Texas. Harris County does not have 40 DPS offices for its 5 million people. The current backlog to get a DPS drivers license appointment in Harris County is 45 days. The next available appointment in Kerrville is tomorrow. That is inequitable.

But anyway, none of that is the real core issue with the idea of voter ID. The real issue is that there are many living Americans who were born in jurisdictions that steadfastly refused to issue birth certificates to Black people.

There are such efforts. It’s still a bandaid on the systemic problems.

A (small) majority of states require employers to grant time off to vote and a (large) minority require that time to be paid. Although as others have noted, it is often the case that the window for voting exceeds a single shift (dependent on your area of work).

https://www.adp.com/spark/articles/2024/10/time-off-to-vote-...

In Washington voting is free. My ballot comes in the mail, I fill it out, I drop it in the outgoing mail. It's pre-stamped. I don't mind full citizenship verification at the time of registration, as that can be done months before it's actually time to vote.

> Neither is voting free

It's pretty free. You sit down at your table, fill out your ballot, and drop it in the mailbox. You don't even need a stamp. (In some jurisdictions.)

This like saying that because ISPs charge for access, HN could have a subscription fee. The argument is that quantity matters.

"Voting is only from 9-4" and you have a real job. Let's not pretend this wouldn't immediately be taken advantage of in certain places where disenfranchisement is real.

Funny, because I have the exact same thing to say to the legislators. Oh, it's too hard to get everyone voter ID? Too expensive? That's life; figure it out before passing your pointless security theater law[1]. Otherwise, we will do everything in our power to stop it.

[1] (Though mass disenfranchisement is almost certainly the actual purpose of the law, not security.)

Making things more difficult means fewer people will do it. It's foolish to insist that it's all or nothing. It's not about being capable, it's about marginal effects in large groups of people.

Real ID only confirms one was lawfully present in the United States when the ID was issued, it is not intended to prove citizenship.

https://www.dhs.gov/archive/real-id-public-faqs

For example, DACA recipients, temporary protected status refugees, and citizens of states in free association with the USA (Micronesia/Marshall Islands/Palau) that are in the USA are all eligible for Real ID.

I'm not sure where this idea that REAL ID is a form of citizenship came from. I am not a citizen and i was given a REAL ID just by proving my legal (non-immigrant) status.

I have a Real ID, and I supplied a proof of citizenship to get it. However, in my state, it's possible to obtain a Real ID without providing proof of citizenship, so my Real ID does not qualify as proof of citizenship. My passport is the only document I have that could function as both photo ID and proof of citizenship. Passports are not the easiest things to obtain and they are not free.

.gov own court filings have argued Real ID isn't a reliable proof of citizenship and have refused to accept it as such.

  "...based on HSI Special Agent training and experience, REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship."

Any ballots that are cast under same-day registration are cast as provisional and will go through the full verification process if the election is close enough where those ballots are necessary.

Source: actually ran a fucking election precinct. Non-citizens aren’t casting ballots illegally.

That is the documentation they ask for in the application. It's enough for them to understand who you claim to be. They then consult their own records to establish if that identity is eligible to vote. Then finally, on Election Day, you show you are that person.

At that last part, Election Day identification, is not even that important, since the same person can't vote twice. So if you impersonate another person that will be quickly detected. It's not a useful strategy to alter the outcome of an election.

In that process there's no proof, but every state manages voter roles which your provisional information will then go through a further process.

I have cousins from Cuba and Venezuela, hearing this sort of information is rather alarming to them to say the least.

He's trying to prevent poor people from voting.

Requiring poor people to pay a hefty fee, which they probably don't have, to get a passport seems a fairly competent way to go about making sure poor people don't vote to me.

If I don't want poor people voting, then attaching a fee to voting doesn't mean I'm incompetent. It means I'm smart enough to know poor people don't have money.

By the way, I think all of this is horrible. Everyone should be equal before the law and should have their vote count without having to pay for that right. I'm just pointing out that this is a really good way to eliminate the vote of the poor.