I'll fight you on this.
It's not an absolute barrier, sure. But, it's completely unnecessary and has a disparate impact on poor folks and other marginalized groups.
For example, let's say there's a legally blind person that lives in rural Texas. You're going to make him or her arrange to spend a whole day going to a DMV that could be a long distance from their house to obtain an ID whose only purpose is voting. That is a real barrier, especially if they're on a fixed income. And what if they already have an ID, but someone steals their wallet a week before the election. It's just not fair to take away their vote for no reason. We have a system of voter registration and penalties that makes in-person voter fraud virtually non-existent.
OK, I completely understand your point, but what they can do is call a family member or an aid to drive to the DMV (for example). What if they don't have family? Well they can call the police or walk to the local police station (if they have really good senses), and then they can issue you an ID for free sometimes, in most cases its 0$-20$. You would have to be living off the streets in most cases to not have $20. I suspect that most blind people have experience within their home/apartment/area to pick up the phone and call the police.
After all I'm not for photo ID, but I have a hard time understanding really rare arguments against it.
Some people in Texas live 100 miles from the nearest DMV, some of which are only open a couple days a week. Is an understaffed rural police department going to drive someone 200 miles round-trip? And, if the person lost certain required documents, they may have an additional trip and it could cost up to $345 in fees. And what about a person who loses their required ID before the election? And, sure, these obstacles are not insurmountable. But, it could actually be an entire day of waiting and a missed workday to obtain an ID. That's discouraging for many people.
We're also not talking about a small group of people here. 795,000 registered Texas voters lack a driver's license or ID. The data also shows that Hispanics are twice as likely to not have an ID. This is particularly insidious when Hispanics are much more likely to live in poverty, lack a car and can find interfacing with government bureaucracy more challenging than whites.
That money could also be the difference between paying and not paying the rent this month.
