Depends on what qualifies as an ID and how hard it is to get one. But unless you're actively providing them to people that need them with no extra work or travel on their part then you're going to be discriminating against people with less money or time.
In the case where disproportionately more poor people are of a certain race then it can be seen as racist (as it affects the population of that race differently). If the reason that disproportionately more poor people are of a certain race is because of racism, then a policy that disenfranchised the poor would effectively extend economic discrimination into political discrimination.
Though I tend to think that even if we remove the economic effects of racism such that disenfranchising the poor couldn't be called racist, they would still be classist and should be avoided where possible.
My wallet was stolen a few weeks ago. I was able to get my bank cards cancelled, but my only state ID is lost. I live within the US, so I've never needed anything more than my state ID.
I got this state ID using my previous state's ID. The old one is now void. So I need to get a new one. I'll need my birth certificate mailed to me from my parents, because I'm still in the habit of letting them keep all the important family documents. I move alot.
My car broke down a few months ago. Good thing I can walk the relatively (americanly) short distance to work. For after-hours or weekend travel I take the buses (the few my city has) or an uber. Even though it would take me 20 minutes to drive directly to the DMV, the bus route is an hour and ten minutes, and the Uber is going to cost me money. Even if the ID was free, I had to have money to get to the DMV to get it. If I drove, I'd still have paid for the gas.
My work is understaffed and I'm one of the more knowledgable non-managers. I'm working before business hours start and leaving after they end. I can't see a weekday in the next month where I can take time off during the day "just" to get an ID. My boss might understand a medical appointment, but the DMV is not on his list of "reasons I can lose Qaadika for half a day or more".
Americans who make this link to racism are welcome to explain why the same argument gets zero traction in Canadian politics, even among the most left-wing parties.
I have to imagine the Canadian ID situation is different. Here, simply obtaining a copy of your birth certificate can be a long trip to a different state.
I'm not supposed to vote for some other person too, but I could if spend some minimal amount of effort. The same applies to a birth certificate.
The document itself says that someone had a name listed there, or at least that the authorities who issued it believed so about 20 years ago. If anything, the voters roll itself is more reliable for that matter (somebody still believed the same facts more recently).
I mean, proof of possession is some level of assurance, which is better than nothing. Knowing my mothers maiden name and birth date is also some level of assurance (this of it, you don't know those about a random me in the internet, so you can't vote for me in the elections for the next 15 minutes at least). But what is a desired level of assurance for something so many people feel strongly about? Is it more or less compared to visiting porn websites, boarding a plane, drinking alcohol, crossing international border and driving a car on a public road?
Canadian legislators don't have a history of setting arbitrary restrictions on what counts as voter ID, whereas American politicians seem absurdly fixated on it for ~some reason~.
You can look up the Canadian list of accepted identification documents if you want the full thing, but it includes library cards, public transit cards, correspondence from educational institutions, student IDs, blood donor cards, letters of confirmation of residence from shelters and soup kitchens, residential leases or utility bills, and personal cheques.
You can also vote without ID in Canada by having a guarantor with ID vouch for you.
Contrast the proposed SAVE act, which accepts... passports, birth certificates, naturalization documents, and "REAL ID-compliant documents that also indicate citizenship", which is a fun one.
It's been a talking point specific to the voting system in the US, strangely no other country seems to think it's an issue and as soon as the topic changes no one in the US has an issue requiring IDs for things.
No other country is quite as heterogeneous as the US. And there is a significant history in the US of using restrictions around voting to disenfranchise certain ethnicities. That makes any restriction around voting a sensitive topic in the US.
Proponents of voter ID claim it is needed to prevent fraud, while opponents point out that there's not enough fraud for it to be worth the cost.
Note that countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also didn't require voter ID. First-world countries that do require ID to vote have systems in place to ensure that getting that ID is easy even for poorer people - such as automatically sending the ID to the voter by mail if the government requires you to report your residence or filing out the necessary forms once, before turning 18.
> there's no scientific link between race and the ability to go to a DMV once every 10 years
That form of ID is neither accepted per the proposed legislation [1] nor does it last 10 years (more like 4-5 years from what I've seen). Please go look at what's actually required per the SAVE Act.
If you have to go to a specific DMV at a specific time, it's a link to a ZIP code and economical situation (i.e. having enough time during work hours just for that). That's a good enough proxy for race. Bonus points if you can also make a specific DMV for a specific ZIP code shittier experience on purpose. Nobody would ever try to do that in a-country, right.
FWIW, I don't think you're really addressing their point. What they're really saying is that they find it implausible that any significant fraction of the population is genuinely unable to go to the DMV once every 10 years. You're not really providing a counterargument, but rather just arguing that going to the DMV is more difficult for some people than others. Sure, but that's true for pretty much everything -- even just putting food on the table is harder when you're poor, yet people still find ways to do it.
I think of it as another step in a leaky conversion pipeline, but instead of minimizing the dropoff the pipeline is optimized for maximizing. It's not that people are unable to fill 10 field form that sometimes randomly loses all your input, but more people will complete the form if it doesn't.
Another thing is when the id requirement is not just there, but added right before the election, so it's not "going to dmv once every 10 years", but "going to dmv this year especially so you can vote.
If I would be optimizing for the minimal dropoff, the policy would look like "passing the law that takes effect in 5 years from now, tasking the blah blah agency with increasing the id coverage and putting reminders how important it is to get an id and vote everywhere you look at, increased funding for the dmv and whatever". But no, it's has to be done with the urgency and framed as threat.
So the actual argument is not that there is link between race and going to dmv once in 10 years, but that the intent behind passing such laws is not increasing integrity, but favoring a specific party. Even if doesn't actually work, it's still one of the worst things a party in a democratic system can do.
I had a much longer comment here but I ended up scrapping it since it would make for too long of a discussion. I'll just quickly address a few specific things:
> added right before the election
I feel like it's not hard to counter-argue that the writing has been on the wall for decades and it's not a genuine surprise at this point.
> So the actual argument is not that there is link between race and going to dmv once in 10 years
IMO, it's probably better to make the the actual argument.
It's absolutely a taking point in the UK, although here it is down class and party lines rather than race lines, but that is just because different countries have different natural ways to discuss things.
It's the same basic idea, richer people are more likely to already have an id (drivers licence, passport).
Voting is a civil right. We need to have a system that allows everyone who is allowed to vote, to vote. Many people don't have IDs and it is an onerous process to get one. Any system that requires IDs for voting suppresses these people's civil rights.
> Many people don't have IDs and it is an onerous process to get one.
I have seen this constantly claimed, and never reasonably evidenced. It's also hard to believe the kind of American exceptionalism that supposedly causes these problems that everyone else can easily solve, despite an environment that is clearly heavily politically invested in solving it (because that also avoids the appearance of racism).
Meanwhile, American proponents of voter ID can readily find people including among the supposedly discriminated-against groups who will testify to the contrary.
Solving it in other countries often involved a standard id that everyone uses for many things, so it becomes a standard party of life. Many people in the US, from what I can tell, don't want that.
Last time I had to get the ID (sea floor countries in Europe), it was something like a hundred eurobucks, about 20 minutes of my time and two trips to the place during kinda sorta business hours. But then again, I have to use my 3 hour lunch breaks for something besides drinking beer.
isn't that racist? i've heard it repeated but i'm not so sure