Who might have difficulty meeting Voter ID?

By Linda Irvin-Craig

Let us poke around and think who might have difficulty getting an ID card that would allow them to register to vote under the new voter suppression laws? Large population urban residents who never drive, using only mass transit for travel; residents of very rural areas born at home, especially older minorities, without a certified birth certificate; victims of crimes, fires and natural disasters like hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, where every evidence of their previous lives disappears in an instant; may all fall into that void. Sometimes it is just moving to a new home, or eviction, when things get lost. Solutions please.

Without the issuance of a federal standard for voter ID, states can change or make up new standards any time they choose, and they often do. Until we have such a standard, voters should be able to register based on proof of residence, such as a current utility bill that lists the current address and an oath of citizenship. Utilities have a way of getting their bills paid.

Undocumented residents’ fear of deportation keep them from even trying to register or vote.