I Hate the Perennial Arguments About Voter I.D. Laws

I've been thinking lately about how the election really doesn't matter. Though I agree with more of what Romney has to say I'm still pessimistic that the Congress and the President will actually be able to come together in a bipartisan way to solve the big budget issues of today.

It's absurd that the new health care law was enacted without bipartisan support and it would be just as absurd if the Republicans tried to solve the budget crisis without bipartisan support. Everyone needs to read this article:

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/16/washington-economy-fix/?iid=SF_F_River

My current view is that it really doesn't matter at this point who is elected because we'll just find a way to kick the can down the road a bit. I believe the only way we get real bipartisan reform like the authors discuss is when the bond market screams bloody murder and demands a higher return on their money. I don't believe this will happen until Europe gets their act together enough that people will finally start pulling their money out of the "safety" of the US/German bond markets. My guess is it's about 3-4 years away.

What does this have to do with the Voter ID Law post? Well, really nothing. All of these issues to me are just noise drowning out the rumbles of thunder you aren't hearing in the distance because of all the yelling, screaming, boycotting that you are getting from both sides. To hear that rumble you need to get down real low below all the hollering and put your ear to the ground.

Notice how all the noise above you becomes faint and unintelligible? Why is that? Well, maybe we need to ask the animals that fled to safety before the Sri Lanka tsunami in 2004. Maybe we need to replace Congress and the President with those same animals so we can actually avoid the coming tsunami. So instead of a choice between Obama and Romney I would rather choose between a donkey and an elephant.

Amen.

I think you've completely missed the point on this one. Let's enumerate some things that citizens are compelled to do that do not require a valid ID:
* Paying taxes (having an SSN is required, but we're all given one of those whether we like it or not)
* getting arrested
* Buying a gun (in some locations)
* Using public transportation
* participating in the US Census
If voting is so important, the solution to getting more people to vote is not to put more impediments into the process, but making it mandatory for all citizens to vote.
Clearly the US government has figured out a way to collect taxes and get census participation without requiring IDs; the same could be done for voting.
There are also plenty of ways to vote that guarantee or severly limit any types of fraud. For example, you can provide universal voting by mail in federal and state elections. And for those without mailing addresses, voting could be accomplished by proxy or by polling stations convienient to where there are populations that have difficulty accessing the postal system. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this at the same or lower cost that what our curent system(s) achieve.
If you were really interested in being intellectually honest, and your concern as you state is for people to take advantage of their rights, then you'd be arguing for some universal mechanism to ensure participation rather than arguing for techniques that do nothing but put more barriers in place to access our rights.

Why would anyone want to force people who do not give a damn to vote?

You'll get more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIOePg4K0vI

An important factor of your list is that NONE of them are restricted to citizens, but voting is.

And except for private sales, a gun purchase must go through a U.S. government check.

Heck, in many states even private sales have to go through a federal check.

Your assertion makes an illogical leap between the idea that my support for the importance of voting as a matter of fundamental civil rights means that it is desirable to somehow force people ("ensure participation" and "making it mandatory" in your words) to take part in that very institution. That is incorrect. I believe marriage is a fundamental civil right but I don't support forcing people to get married. I believe religion is a fundamental civil right but I don't support forcing people to declare a belief system. I believe that owning a gun is a fundamental civil right, but I don't support people being required to purchase a gun.

If one is compelled to participate in an activity it is no longer a right, it is an obligation. Thus the premise of your objection is flawed due to your incorrect presumption.

Voting is a right guaranteed by the Constitution to citizens of the United States. Requiring to prove that you are a citizen, and entitled to participate in that right, is not a burden, especially, if Congress were to create a free program to provide such documentation for people who could not afford the $11 fee that, for example, my home state of Missouri assesses. When I got married, which is recognized by the Supreme Court in a century of case law as a fundamental civil right, I was required to show government issued identification. When I buy a gun, which is recognized by the constitution as a fundamental civil right, I am required to show government issued identification. Your assertion that voting is somehow different is absurd. It's patently absurd.

Although it is inconsequential to the conversation, it is a virtual certainty looking at the two top-ticket candidates on the ballot this November, my family and I will be casting our ballots for President Obama's re-election. It is entirely possible, based on the demographic data, that voter identification laws would hurt my chance's side for victory, yet I support the policy anyway, as do 70 to 80 out of 100 Americans, because it is logical. It is the right thing to do. The only reason one would oppose them is because they fear their side will be hurt, putting party before policy, which I will never support.

Opposition to reasonable voter identification laws is a stupid battle to fight. There are no rational objection to such programs on one vital condition: There must be a mechanism for free i.d. delivery so that the poor are not punished or disenfranchised.

I think your objections are bunk. I just think that intellectually, they are total and complete bunk. There is real disenfranchisement going on, such gerrymandering and closing polling areas early in liberal districts. Those are things that should be viciously attacked.

I think you again have missed the point. I made no logical leap of your support of voting and your support of it as a civil right. What I said was that if you think it's important, you'd argue for ways to not impede it, rather than putting impediments in the path of voting (and universal sufferage is one way of accomplishing that).
I then argued that there are ways to pay taxes, for example, without worrying about someone paying taxes for the wrong person, so why wouldn't we invent a system that guarantees (or makes very difficult) that people can exercise their rights without implementing artificial barriers.
I could have argued further about why voter ID laws are impediments to voting, but I would have thought that was obvious, and unnecessary because we've already implemented ways to make this work without IDs for other systems.
So, I stand by my assertion that you're being intellectually dishonest in this belief rather than thinking it through and arguing from a point of rationalism. Especially since you refuse to compare systems that work that don't require IDs to the issue of voting.
You also further seem to want to convince me that voting for one party or other affects how someone may feel about this issue, but that's not at all what I was arguing. I don't think it matters which party is advantaged by this, the point is that requiring an ID is not actually necessary to accomplish the stated goal of the law (avoiding fraud), and it's not even the cheapest or easiest way to achieve that goal, so I think you're missing the motivational factor of why voter ID laws are important to convince me that you're being rational.

one point I forgot to mention, although, again I would think it was obvious, is that voting, in general, is already a fairly well-policed system that discourages fraud. Actual cases of voter fraud are rare, and almost always perpetuated by the parties involved in the election rather than random members of the public.
So, to summarize my point to make it crystal clear: if a law is necessary to achieve a goal, then it makes sense to argue for it. If a law isn't necessary to achieve that goal, arguing that other systems require it is misdirection.

I started following this site two years ago and it seems clear that he's using the Socratic method on you and you keep falling into the same trap. You think you are discussing voter identification laws but Joshua isn't or at least I don't think he is. He's trying to teach you how to argue a point.

You say things like "What I said was that if you think it's important, you'd argue for ways to not impede it, rather than putting impediments in the path of voting (and universal sufferage is one way of accomplishing that)."

If you had hung around here long enough you would have spotted that that is not true. You state "A" (if you think it is important) then "B" (you would argue for ways not to impede it). You take B as a given, settled, rational belief when it is not. It is an assumption. Then you base your objection to his statement on it. It is kinda like building a house on sand. The foundation is bad so even if you make a point, it must be rejected on logical grounds. It does not even matter if your main point is correct, it is still flawed.

I would not have even known what any of that meant when I first found this site but it has changed my life. I suspect if you switched your argument but kept the same logic errors, he would switch his position too because he is more interested in you getting the thought process right than coming to the right conclusion on votter laws. That is my hunch.

Well, I thought I was done with this topic, but after thinking about it some more, it became clearer to me where the point of disagreement was. I must admit, before last Friday, I really hadn't cared or thought too much about voter ID laws, but it was the irrationality that I percieved in your argument that got me thinking.
First, you state that you need an ID to purchase a gun, but that's not literally true. There is at least one way for a citizen to exercise the right to bear arms without having to prove that they are a citizen (private gun sales are a loophole that guarantees that you can exercise this right). Also, I don't know what casino's you've gambled at, but I've never needed to show my id to enter or to observe (or even participate in) gambling. So, it's not universally true for all rights that citizens need to prove their ID to exercise their rights.
But that got me to thinking about what you were actually saying. It ocured to me that you're not actually arguing that voter ID laws close a loophole or guarantee some specific result. You seem to be arguing that the BURDEN of proof of citizenship is on the citizen and not the government when it comes to all of the things you list.
So, my point was that there are plenty of ways to ensure that only citizens vote and that only one vote per person occurs without putting that burden on the citizen. Also, there are other rights that we have (e.g., BIll of Rights Amendment IX) that do not require us to show ID, so it seemed a little absurd that the argument was that it was our duty to prove who we are to exercise our "rights".
Of examples you've given, most of these are things which the citizen receives some tangible result (e.g., a marriage license), and also, the proof of ID is not to gain access to the "right" but to prove who you are so that you can enter into a contract or to perform a transaction. As far as voting is concerned, there are distant consequences to a citizen executing his or her right, but there's no specific tangible result they see at the time of exercise.
It makes sense to argue that you "want" people to prove citizenship to exercise their right to vote. But it doesn't make sense to argue that 1) voting is important 2) you encourage it so much that you drive people in harsh conditions to perform their civic duty and 3) you want to add one more check to the system. #3 negates #'s 1 and 2 if #3 serves no particular purpose.
My originial response was not that you "had to" support making voting mandatory, but rather that if you argue #1 and #2, then you would naturally not argue to put more barriers to the consumer of the process. So, to me, the part of your argument that falls flat is why is #3 necessary? Just because you need an ID to get a marriage license is not proof that it SHOULD be necessary to have an ID to vote. If you believed in #1 and #2, you would argue that a system could be designed that put the burden on the government to ensure citizenship and fraud protection (which they mostly already do). That is where your logical consistency falls apart, or maybe I'm just not seeing the point you're trying to make.
So, it seems to be you're being intellectually inconsistent or you're just not seeing the absurdity of your point. I would agree that there are plenty of more insidious disenfranchisement techniques than voter ID laws, but as far as the voter ID laws themselves go, they serve no actual purpose.

1. "You seem to be arguing that the BURDEN of proof of citizenship is on the citizen and not the government when it comes to all of the things you list. "

More accurately, my argument is that showing identification is not a burden at all. There is no substantial pain, cost, or trouble. It's as damn near effortless as you can get. I've voted in every election I could since I was 18 years old, and I have had to show a driver's license at my local precinct in every one of those elections. The polling place matches up my government photo identification with my voter registration card, which is mailed out several months in advance, and my name on a huge binder. It takes less than five seconds.

Bluntly: There is no burden in your asserted burden. It's like saying getting the precinct is a burden so we shouldn't require people to travel because it costs gas or a bus ticket; or like arguing that there are better ways to vote so we should allow Internet polling so people don't even have to get off work. It reminds me of the political equivalent of early Christians sitting around arguing about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.

Even if, as you assert and I believe to be true, voter fraud is a relatively small problem, something that provided at least a modest probability of cutting a minute fraction of it (the 2000 election was decided by 537 votes in the state of Florida, which was only 0.00051% of the total votes cast nationwide), while increasing the confidence of election outcomes among the lower class and lesser educated, is certainly a societal good with virtually no offsetting cost. The fact there may or may not be slightly more efficient ways to do it is inconsequential. If there are, fine. Great. Do them.

Moving beyond that, purely from a logic perspective, let's presume, for a moment, that voter identification is, as you seem to insist, a massive burden; a godawful, Sisyphean task demanded of citizens.

In such a case, points #1 and #2 would still not be intellectually inconsistent with point #3. To believe it is requires once again making a leap based upon a faulty premise, assuming that I "would naturally not argue to put more barriers to the consumer of the process."

Quite the contrary. There are many situations in which such a position could be entirely consistent and rational. One such would be someone who understood the psychological truism, "That which is easily earned is lightly esteemed."

To draw a parallel, 1.) I believe marriage is important, 2.) I believing in encouraging marriage so much that I drove 1,800 miles in the past 5 days to attend a wedding in New Mexico, and 3.) I support significant barriers to entering into a marriage contract, including reducing the opportunity for divorce and increasing the penalties for seeking a dissolution of a marriage contract.

All three statements are true, in my case. Your belief that #1 is true, #2 is true, therefore #3 is false does not follow because you are asserting, on a fundamental level, that because I believe something is good, and that I am willing to invest my personal resources and time in helping someone take advantage of the institution, I also think it should be easy. That is a non sequitur. It does not follow.

TL;DR: The best way to sum up my feeling toward voter identification laws is not one of rationality or intellectual consistency, it is a matter of not giving a damn so if it makes other people feel better, and instills confidence in the process even as a placebo, fine. I think the entire topic is an unnecessary distraction from far more important things. The passion of those fighting against them in their present form is wasted energy that costs goodwill with the body politic, regardless of whether that body politic is rational in its insistence of such laws. Pragmatism in the matter is far better than adherence to rigid ideology or theoretical democratic purity.

or

TL;DR II: Learn to pick your fights.

I didn't argue that it was a Sisyphean task. I was arguing that it is another unnecessary check in an already well-policed system. You are the one coming up with ways in which the "burden" can be easily overcome. It's basically the equivalent of the proponents of Prop 8 in California arguing that the word "marriage" is a critical distinction that needs to be reserved for a man and a woman, and the opponents of prop 8 saying the other side has summed up their case of why it's important fight for it as a right. So, by arguing that the burden is easily overcome, you're tacitly admitting there is a burden in the first place.
Which brings us to the actual point of disagreement, which is that you "feel" a certain way about voter identification laws, and it's fine to argue from that point of view, but when it comes to implementing them, it's important to address why they're needed and what ways the same goal could be accomplished without making it harder to access the system.
If you feel that it doesn't have to be easier to access the system, then I disagree with the conclusion you're coming to based on the facts that you present, and I disagree with a few of the facts that you present (e.g., that people need IDs to access their rights), but I wouldn't disagree with an argument on how you feel about it, if that's what you're actually saying.
Lots of peoople "feel" that gay people shouldn't have access to the word "marriage", but that doesn't provide a rational basis for implementing a law to prevent it.

I am going to simplify my position in completely clear, bite-size and numbered terms so there is no miscommunication. I've tried to dangle it just out of reach so you would come to the conclusion on your own but you just aren't getting there.

1. You are approaching logic and rationality like a computer programmer with an autism spectrum disorder who thinks he is behaving in a purely intellectual way but says something that makes all the other kids look at him like he's got two heads.

2. That approach does not work in the real world (e.g., outside a laboratory setting or a computer programming system) because it ignores the second-and-third order behavioral psychology consequences that underlie all human systems, which are driven by basic emotional needs.

3. Therefore, if voter identification laws make people think the election is fairer, even if they are redundant to the system, implementing them can be rational because it leads to greater legitimacy and emotional acceptance of the election results, making social upheaval less likely and legislative compromise more acceptable.

4. This is contingent upon the burden placed upon voters being light enough that there is no disenfranchisement. No clear and bright line exists, so the courts use the Potter Stewart rule from Jacobellis v. Ohio, "I know it when I see it."

By way of example, a few days ago, the Justice Department upheld the voter ID laws in Virginia on the condition that the type of acceptable identification was broadened.

5. Given the paradoxical nature of the necessity of voter identification laws between the 1st order effects and the 2nd and 3rd order effects, I don't care whether or not they are implemented any more than I care whether or not my local post office is painted blue, pink, or lime green.

I get what you're saying... and I understand the tediousness of the debate. The approach used to implement voter ID laws is the same approach used to encroach on rights of any kind. As an example in the real world, if someone asked you to lend them $0.25, you may say yes one day. Then they see that they can get $0.25 and come asking for $0.50 tomorrow. While it's ok to say that you'll deal with the problem tomorrow when it's a real issue, the problem is that they're asking you for money in the first place. And while courts can uphold or strike down certain laws, the point of the debate is to not let these things enter our discourse in the first place.
So, I get that it's easier to give in and say, "sure, this looks like it works and eliminates a problem and it doesn't cause too much harm," but without using the words "slippery slope, i think you can see where that may lead.
Anyway, if I've come across as an Asperger's sufferer, then I apologize.

John,

I have been watching this discussion since it began. You don't realize that you got your ass handed to you after the first exchange, do you?

Mr. Kennon is right. You would fail introductory logic if you were to take it at university. Your comparison to the Proposition 8 case is a nice illustration of your mistake drawing a line and then connecting non-correlated rationales. The legal basis of Proposition 8 being declared unconstitutional was that it permanently disenfranchised a group (gays and lesbians) from an institution the Supreme Court said was the most fundamental relationship of life based upon an innate characteristic (sexual orientation), which failed the animus test of Romer v. Evans case law. The gays were left with no viable way to access their constitutional right to marry because the Perry v. Schwarzenegger case ruled that forcing a gay person to marry and opposite sex person was not a viable remedy, and the burden of remaining non-married was too high.

With voter identification laws, there is no disenfranchisement. Every citizen who is entitled to the constitutional right to vote could still vote. The only constitutional challenge that might survive is if the burden was placed too high or targeted a specific group such as only asking blacks to show photographic identification.

You should stop embarrassing yourself.

"
Even if, as you assert and I believe to be true, voter fraud is a relatively small problem, something that provided at least a modest probability of cutting a minute fraction of it (the 2000 election was decided by 537 votes in the state of Florida, which was only 0.00051% of the total votes cast nationwide), while increasing the confidence of election outcomes among the lower class and lesser educated, is certainly a societal good with virtually no offsetting cost."

The issue of voter identification laws has nothing to do with the likelihood of fraud. It is all a matter of confidence. If the public does not have confidence their vote matters and/or is counted, the institution of democracy is at risk, regardless of the reality. If 90% of people in the country think there is massive voter fraud and avoid the polls because of this, there is a serious threat to the voting process itself. it doesn't matter one bit whether there is any fraud or not. The people must have the confidence that they still hold the power in the country, not the politicians or a group that goes around rigging elections. This is the same for money. The reason the Secret Service spends as much money and effort to thwart counterfeiting is because the economy relies on the power of the dollar. If people don't trust the value of a dollar, it loses that value. Even a small-time counterfeiter risks the economic security of the country if left unchecked.

That being said, I agree with both of you. I see nothing wrong with the concept of voter ID laws. They are a simple way of verifying a voter's ID and provide a good degree of confidence that voter fraud is being kept to a minimum. I think they should be mandatory in every state. However, there must be a way to allow people to obtain IDs that do not have them. Free or very cheap IDs are a start. A place to get an ID that is within normal travelling distance is needed, even if it is only on a temporary basis (maybe a week or two where a temporary booth is open for every community and some sort of busing service or other transportation method). Ensuring reasonable hours is a third necessity. Lastly, ensuring employers are allowing employees time to get their IDs, even if it means missing work (I'm not saying they should have a free day off, but they need to be able to exercise their ability to use vacation or sick time). All these necessities are already available to 95% of the population. There are only a very small handful of places in the country that do not meet all the requirements I laid out. This should not be a Herculean task to meet them. And what will be the result of implementing these requirements? The vast majority of people that fall into the category of no ID, no car, no free time, even given the opportunity to get an ID, won't do it. That is just the reality.

The summation of my feelings: Every method of ensuring voter confidence MUST be implemented to secure the trust in the voting system AND every method of providing a reasonable ability for people to vote MUST be implemented to allow everyone to vote if they have the will.

While I agree with your conclusions in principle, in
practice, the situation doesn’t live up to your idealized conception.

As mentioned in this article: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/doj_texas_voter_id_ruling_is_no_surprise_given_states_faulty_colorblind_policies.html

“Texas has no driver’s license offices in almost a third of
the state’s counties. Meanwhile, close to 15 percent of Hispanic Texans living
in counties without driver’s license offices don’t have ID. A little less than
a quarter of driver’s license offices have extended hours, which would make it
tough for many working voters to find a place and time to acquire the IDs.
Despite this, the Texas legislature struck an amendment that would have
reimbursed low-income voters for travel expenses when going to apply for a
voter ID, and killed another that would have required offices to remain open
until 7:00 p.m. or later on just one weekday, and four or more hours at least
two weekends.”

I live in Texas, and that rings true. Even in the
metropolitan area of Dallas/Fort Worth, if you don’t have a car, it can be next
to impossible to get around. Everything here is spread out too far to walk,
public transportation is inefficient or nonexistent, and if you’re living on
low income and working to support a family, you would have to factor in the
time and effort needed to get to the Department of Transportation, probably
while skipping a day of work, which makes the cost much more substantial.

True, if there were a provision in these laws that allowed for
IDs to be distributed, for free or for minimal charge, to all registered voters
without requiring that they travel to a specific place with limited operating
hours and locations, there wouldn’t be a problem. But those provisions aren’t
written into any of these laws. Instead, as mentioned above, the legislature
has nixed even less broad measures aimed at making the IDs easier to get.

So while I don’t oppose the idea of requiring an ID to vote,
the methods used to enact these laws seem very sketchy to me. Namely, during a
major election year, without helpful provisions, in the name of preventing a
crime that very few people ever even try to commit, and in ways that most
analysts agree would have a disproportional impact on (legal) low income and
minority voters, vouched for by the people who have the most to lose if those
people do vote.

So no, I don’t think the people complaining about the laws
are sore losers, or willing to cheat. That label is far more accurately aimed
at the people enacting these specific laws in the first place.

So no, it’s not the idea of requiring an ID to vote that is
so onerous or abhorrent. It’s the timing, it’s the lack of any type of funding
or programs that would make it easier to get the cards, it’s the spurious and
transparent argument that voter fraud is such a widespread phenomenon that it
needs to be dealt with immediately, and it’s the near-certain effects of disenfranchising
hundreds of thousands of individuals, who would otherwise be legally able to
vote, if the laws are enacted at this time and in this manner.

I think you're right. I hate to admit it, but I think the only thing that will force a structural change to the United States budget is either a unifying event such as a world war or a national crisis, such as the interest expense on the national debt climbing to levels that force a total shutdown in other government spending, destroying social programs that the left cares about and requiring hiring taxes that the right refuses to pay.

This human flaw manifests all the time. Most people don't lose weight until they have a medical intervention and are told they will die. Most people don't manage their money well until they have an event that scares them and causes them to start putting cash away in an emergency fund. Too many people think they are invincible.

But, if I were a betting man, I think you're right. However, the economic damage is only my second largest concern. When sitting by the fireplace at night, thinking and reading, I sometimes find myself terrified that we have reached the point Sinclair Lewis said would come: Fascism has hit these shores wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible. We are living in a turnkey totalitarian state with privacy laws that are pathetic imitations of those given to European citizens, who have the "right to be forgotten" online, among other common sense provisions. We have people screaming about religious liberty while simultaneously passing laws that oppress individual freedoms without realizing the irony. That type of national zeitgeist, combined with an economic collapse, has always ended disastrously for the world.

The thing that I can't understand is everyone says, "The national debt is as high as it was since World War II." Obviously! We've been fighting not one, but two wars-in-everything-but-name for nearly a decade now. Destroying Hitler only took six years and one day. Before long, we'll have been bombing the middle east without any objective for twice that long. The economic situation is merely a consequence of that. If taxes were tied to war, people would sue for peace far more readily and we wouldn't see so much waste.

Please excuse the language, but the entire situation is f****d. It will only change when people are forced to do something different because the pain of doing the same thing is greater than the pain of change. In past generations, there were counterforces to war ... the draft meant mothers and fathers would lose their sons and people had to change their lives unexpectedly and the higher taxes meant you wrote a check and were constantly reminded of the struggle. Those have been taken away. People are removed from conflict now so we bear the price without realizing it, delaying action. It's all connected. Everyone wants to dine and hand the bill to the next generation.

That was one of the most horrifying things I have ever heard. I have never understood this kind of ignorance, on either side of the political aisle.

"Let’s be honest: The far left doesn’t like the voter I.D. laws because it may cause them to lose a few votes."

Let's also be honest in saying that the far right didn't think there was much of a problem until Obama got elected. It became a bigger problem when he was re-elected. The far right wants the id laws to keep some "lefties" from voting. And you're right, the far left opposition is based on not wanting to loose votes. The right is seeking to disadvantage the left, and the left is objecting. It may be tedious, but it's not surprising.

If you're on the left, you have to wonder if someone too lazy and financially irresponsible to get an ID card really bothers to vote anyway? Are any serious number of votes being lost?

I agree that paying $11 isn't a significant burden on most people. A free ID could be issued to those who genuinely can't come up with $11. (Or whatever amount) If people are serious about voting they won't let an ID requirement stop them.

The left would do better to concentrate on total voter turnout among those who already have an ID. It's sad that many people will sleep outside the Apple store to be first in line to get a new i-phone but won't bother to vote in off-year elections.

In my own, personal, experience, that hasn't been true at all. I grew up in the Bible Belt. Here, they've always wanted voter I.D. laws, long before Obama came on the picture. I remember hearing about it back in the 1980's when I was a kid. They finally got it passed into law in my home state 13 years ago, in 2002, when George W. Bush was President. (It's a fight again, now. A court struck down Missouri's 2002 law and they are re-writing it to get it back on the ballot.)

Obama wasn't even known on the national stage at the time.

Likewise, Georgia, Florida, and Hawaii enacted voter I.D. laws back in the 1970's. South Carolina did it in 1988. Texas did it in 1990. Virginia did it in 1996. Colorado, Montana, Alabama and North Dakota did it in 2003. Arizona did it in 2004. Indiana and Washington did it in 2005.

My theory is they just got national attention when mass media's gatekeepers fell, due to the Internet, which made it a topic of conversation elsewhere.

I agree with what you're saying, though. If someone doesn't care enough to vote, I'm not really sure we, as a civilization, want them voting in the first place.

Interesting. I didn't realize it had been an issue that long in some states. I didn't start to become a big issue where I live until Obama was elected. (maybe I just don't pay enough attention to other states)

If someone can't afford the ID they almost certainly are eligible for welfare, which would require an ID ... and round it goes.