About a decade ago my ID expired. This wasn't a huge deal since I don't drive and rarely travel. About a year ago I did want to hop on a plane to visit my nephew in San Diego. So I was thinking getting a new ID wouldn't be a huge problem.

So I go into the DMV with my expired ID and expired passport and a stack of mail with my current address and a stack of debit and credit cards and my social security card. They will not do anything without my birth certificate. Crap.. Lost that when my basement flooded. I will head over to vital records.

Then the lady at the DMV told me that they closed down the vital records office in Eugene and my only option was to go to Portland. So right here I have to spend 60 bucks on a round trip to get to Portland two hours away.

So I get the bus the next day and go to vital records. Again more expense for the Max. So I get them to print out a birth certificate. I had to pay 40 bucks for them to do it. Then they want to see my ID. Wait it is expired. They will not accept it.

I am told my options are to have a parent or sibling come in to vouch for me. Difficulty.. Parents are dead and my sister at the time lived on the east coast.

So here I am stuck. I know, I will have my sister get on a plane to come out here. It will cost but it needs to be done. So she does. So now I need to pay for a last minute ticket for her. And shit, it will be a while so I need to get a hotel for the night. And I should probably cover my sisters lost wages for a few days.

In the end I got my birth certificate. Off to the DMV where I paid 40 bucks for a state issued ID.

This all was fantastically expensive.

And really.. They closed the vital records office in a city that has 200,000 people. The only option for the entire state is Portland. One office for 4 million people and Oregon is a physically large state.

So yes.. Getting a state issued ID can be incredibly hard and expensive. Even if everything was perfect and I was able to easily get the documents it would still be 80 bucks to just get a ID card.

The cost isn't actually the main barrier to availability of ID. It's mostly the timing. They're typically only available at a DMV office, which are only open 9-5 on weekdays (or similar hours). This means taking a day off work, which for many poor people would be a major expense. Most won't have any form of paid time off, so they lose at least the days wages. Not to mention how few DMVs there are in many regions, and the resulting transportation expenses (need to take an express bus to get there in in time to wait in line and get the ID before they close).

Many places with voter photo ID laws provide nondriver IDs for free.

In Pennsylvania, about $30. That's at the high end. In Ohio, it's $8. Generally good for four years. Is $2 per year an impediment to voting?

One is a measure of mental aptitude. The other is a physical thing that proves you are a constituent entitled to all privileges of citizenship, including voting. This analogy makes no sense to me, can you explain it better?

I've never understood this sort of reasoning. Requiring an ID has nothing to do with race. It turns out that the percentage of people that have an ID varies by race - and this makes requiring an ID a form of racial disenfranchisement?

Requiring IDs and then denying IDs to a particular race would be racial disenfranchisement. Simply requiring an ID isn't.

And in the end, I think it makes a lot of sense for an ID to be required in order to place a vote.

That's irrelevant. They did have slaves, doesn't mean slavery was a good system.

IDs should be required but they should also be very easy to obtain. The government should go out of its way to make it as easy a possible. Being undocumented is not useful to any citizen, it creates an underclass. People should have IDs and we should care about voter fraud, whether its 1 vote or 1 million.

That the parties won't do this shows that both sides have something to gain by keeping things the way they are, they just want to win, regardless of the sanctity of the vote or the well-being of the people.

The founders made a system which required landed property to vote. "They didn't require photo IDs" is ridiculous.

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday. While checking in, I overheard the plight of a new mother who didn't have ID, and whose infant therefore could not be seen by the doctor. Fortunately, the clerk's call to a more enlightened manager prevented the potential travesty. The ID-obsessed sense some moral failings on the part of those who have difficulty obtaining IDs, and their instinctive reaction is to make difficult lives yet more difficult.

It's probably very hard to prove fraud when no one uses an id