I am FOR voter IDs. In fact, I am for a national ID card, which would make all of this vis-a-vis electioneering, much easier to organize. I am for the same ID system, universally applied throughout our Union.
In fact, most of my Democratic friends are FOR voter ID. But we are against draconian restrictions that make it as hard as hell for some people to even get a voter ID, like elderly people who no longer have a drivers license, for instance.
Most Democrat apparently do not include these Democrats:
(CBS News) President Obama and Democrats in Congress are pushing back against the new voter identification laws and requirements that Republican-led states have been busy implementing across the country.
The president's re-election campaign will shortly launch the websiteGottaVote.org, an information hub designed to help voters meet voting requirements. Currently, the site asks lawyers to join the campaign's Victory Counsel, a volunteer legal team that helps Americans overcome barriers to voting. It also mentions a May voter registration "weekend of action."
Democrats push back against voter ID laws - CBS News
You have a valid point - to a point, and it is indeed salient to this discussion, so I am glad that someone brought it up.
Every state, including ND (which has no Voter Registration at all, nada, zilch, zippo) should have voter ID. It should be part of a national ID system and it should be very inexpensive. The reason why the President and many prominent DEMS are against the current wave of voter ID initiatives in a number of states, most of them RED states, is that the application really is to disenfranchise the poor and the elderly. Many states require a birth certificate with the married name on it + a valid drivers license in order to get a voter ID, and yet, many, many elderly, those born, say, in 1930, don't even have a birth certificate, much less an addended one with the maiden name changed to the married name. Many elderly don't drive anymore, so they don't have a drivers license. This means that they are fucked, plain and simple.
In Pennsylvania, hundreds and hundreds of seniors were denied a vote, many of them WWII, Korean War or Vietnam War veterans. That is an absolute no-go.
These are the kind of tricks that should NOT be allowed.
So, YES to voter ID. No to the Republican way of doing it.