Mandatory state issues IDs are a cultural red flag for many Americans. This leads to practical absurdities like having the driver's license double as a de facto ID card. As a European, this seems byzantine and unnecessarily inconvenient to me, but such are cultural differences.
Ok so as I understand it: the issue is that some socioeconomic classes are barred from voting because they lack an ID. At the same time, people do not want mandatory state-issued ID because they are reluctant to centralization. A reluctance for which I have sympathy frankly.
But then, how about having optional state-issued IDs (like US passports) with low req to obtain?
I'm not saying it's that easy but I want to understand what makes people think it is such an insurmountable task such that they default to the "remove the requirement" strategy. I feel like there is something interesting hiding there. Or is the thesis that these roadblocks are there on purpose to suppress votes?
> But then, how about having optional state-issued IDs (like US passports) with low req to obtain?
Not sure if you're proposing to change the requirements to make them low, but US passports do not have "low requirements to obtain." You need a bunch of different documentation, you need to be able to visit a place that can take official passport photos, and you need to pay non-trivial fees. And then you need to wait weeks to get it.
