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Comment by Aloha | Hacker News Reader

Rational arguments get lost in the partisan noise. For what its worth, the federal government could make passports (or passport cards) free for every citizen, which would solve the ID requirement. It's something that can be done by presidential fiat even, no laws required, that doesnt solve the issue that the underlying document needed to get any ID cost money, but its a start.

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They are either completely or almost completely free to get in states already. The usual argument then swaps to how much of a pain in the ass it is to source ID documents and show up in person at the DMV or similar.

http://sharedprosperityphila.org/documents/Revised-ID-Waiver...

While this is from 2015, this does not appear to be true.

Those who do have a free ID, require a time consuming waiver process.

Free needs to mean free, "not fill out this stack of paperwork and we'll send it off to the state capitol and see if it'll get approved"

Means testing is expensive and time consuming.

I moved to a new state last year and to get an ID/DL the first available appointment was 90 days away. The amount of documentation required for the said ID was also less than whats needed for a US passport. Even after an appointment for a specific time, I waited 1.5 hours in the line for my turn. The fee was nominal (for me, $25.) But I can totally see how it can be hard for some people to go through the whole process.

I don't know that the US is especially worse than other countries when it comes to time and paperwork needed to receive govt services. I have waited in long lines all over the world.

This isn't for government services, this is for voting. The kind of people that are prime targets for disenfranchisement are exactly the same people who can least afford to spend a long time in line to vote. And they won't, because the relative value of that vote to them is pretty low, but in aggregate pretty high to the folks who'd like to disenfranchise them to win elections.

I don't believe that they are free in most states. $25 is a lot for some people. Three hours to take the bus to the DMV, wait in line, and take the bus home is both a reality and time they don't have for some people.

Until the voter ID proposals address these issues, they aren't "securing our elections", they are putting arbitrary barriers in place of American's inalienable right to vote. Many of us will never support disenfranchising anyone.

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