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"Having to show ID/proof of citizenship to vote" is one of those things that even when I was quite left-wing I didn't think was at all unreasonable.
I am quite left wing you might say, and I am against it for now; given who is asking for it and how they are asking. Mister ""find 11,780 votes" wants to put his spoon in? I wonder why.
That said, the instant we pick an ID (SSN or TIN, medicare, Drivers License, Passport card, there are so fucking many) and make it mandatory, free, and universally accepted, I will instantly flip. I'm tired of having that thang on me (my stack of government proof I exist) every time I do anything sufficiently financial, shuffling through a binder of documents like I'm trading pokemon cards.
Usually the full fat passport is enough, but sometimes ... Do you want my SSN card? Not that SSN card, huh? You don't like this one? It doesn't elicit joy? How bout some bank statements? Phone company bill! Bitch, it isn't 1985 anymore!
Huh. I had to do that to get my non-real-ID New Jersey license -- was actually pretty funny as I was forewarned that they were extremely picky so I brought a shitload of documentation, I'd put something down, they'd say "no", and I'd move on to something else. But most of my financial stuff has been done with no ID at all, just giving over my totally-not-for-identification-purposes-LOL SSN.
I think a passport card would work under the new law -- it's a Real ID which shows citizenship. I have one because it was easier to get that from the Feds (by mail) than to get a real-ID NJ license (which requires an appointment in person at one of a few centers)
Hah! I'm intimately involved with that licensing absurdity. Through my various duties I get to overhear the woes of state licensing supplicants; I am also a passport acceptance agent. From this I've come to learn that for most of my fellow citizens they'd have an easier time getting a passport card for the sake of RealID than bothering with the state's licensing apparatus.
To bring it back to the topic of discussion, I concur with @asdasdasdasd: my qualm with voter ID is the Kafkaesque (it's trite because it's true) task of getting ID in the first place. It's incongruous that I help issue RealID documents that provide more travel opportunities and have fewer and better-defined documentation requirements than state-issued RealID licenses do.
Almost everyone in the US has jumped through the hoops to get a government photo ID, you can’t survive without it.
Even this leftwing think tank admits that only 9% of voting age American citizens don't have proof of citizenship "readily available". Note the weasel wording with readily available. This is also assuming that the self-reporting of citizenship in the survey was accurate and not a bunch of illegals lying:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/millions-americans-dont-have-documents-proving-their-citizenship-readily
Even?
That legitimately sounds like a lot to me.
Like, how many would you think is a lot? 50%?
At least 25%.
But really, it's more of a fundamental belief about the value of voting and what citizenship even means.
I don't think it's too uncharitable to say Dems are the Party of Vote Maximization- that anyone in the country should be able to vote with no verification whatsoever. 500 hobos voting from one building in Philly or whatever it was is apparently the pinnacle of democracy. Cynically, this has historically benefited Dems, and they drank their koolaid long enough to believe it.
I, on the other hand, think "competent enough to obtain a birth certificate or similar documentation at least once in their lifetime at or after age 18 and have an address that isn't an NGO office" is not so much friction as to be concerning for the foundations of democracy.
I think that is a bit uncharitable. Do Republicans mean no one should vote, ever?
Voter ID is one of the many, many issues where the parties usually take incremental positions. Democrats are the party of fewer restrictions and verifications. They have been since the Southern Strategy realignment. Their current planks are such radical statements as “expand the VRA”. I think most Democrat voters would endorse bringing all states up to the basic ID requirement. Maybe even a national ID, if it was free.
But that’s not what Trump is offering. He’s throwing shit at the wall in hopes that it benefits his team.
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