But in most of the states that have been pushing such laws that is very much not the case. The deliberately pick forms of ID that are less prevalent among poor and minority voters and that for many are expensive to obtain. In several they have also taken measures to make it even more difficult for those people to obtain ID.

For example if they require an ID that you get from the state's department of motor vehicles (DMV) they (in the name of budget cuts) close many DMV offices, and in the ones that remain open the cut back on the hours during which they will issue licenses to a few hours on weekdays. The closures mostly hit in poor and minority districts.

Yes, some of those laws do make some forms of acceptable ID free, but only in the sense that there is no fee to obtain that ID. Obtaining the documents necessary to obtain the ID will still have fees.

  > to optimize their taxes

I couldn't agree more, but you gotta apply the right leverage to the right problem, put the round pegs in the round holes and the square pegs in the square holes. Real digital identity does for the digital economy what credit cards did for the retail economy: dramatically reduce the cost of friction, and therefore dramatically expand, how much activity there will be. It is this reduction in friction which opens additional opportunities even to people with identities issued by less-favored governments. Separately, we can and should push to make qualified immigration simpler, faster, and for more applicants.