First thing is that it is up to states to administer elections and make their own rules and laws. Given the record of the current president, many people and states are not very interested in giving up power over that to the federal government, who keeps trying to claim and take control of state-run elections anyway.

In the US, people are not automatically given IDs or driver licenses. They require a fair amount of time, other paperwork, and fees to procure. Therefore having one is automatically more likely for people with more time (retired, better job, etc), money, organized lives and physical ability since you must show up in person.

By organized lives, I mean people of higher economic status are more likely to live in stable situations where they have social security cards, passports and birth certificates easily accessible. If you don’t have those documents - perhaps they were lost in a move, never given by parents, never applied for - it costs a fair bit to get them. A replacement SS card is free. A duplicate birth certificate can be $20-30. The average charge for an ID/DL is about $40. A copy of a marriage or divorce certificate is typically $10-40. A replacing naturalization certificate is almost $1,400.

Getting these documents could take weeks and an amount of money that’s trivial to higher income people and significant to lower income people. Like voting, if you have a white collar job, it’s fairly easy to take time out to do it. If you have an hourly job with little flexibility and/or lack a vehicle, it’s much more difficult to go to government offices to obtain this paperwork. Some might ask, why would someone not have at least a driver’s license or ID? Perhaps it expired, was lost, they moved and never got the paperwork, or couldn’t afford the fees and time. Younger people and non-white people are known to be less likely to have the documents that would be required. It also creates barriers for armed service members.

Another aspect is the bill says women must prove their citizenship with documents that match their original, non-married name. So if you have a birth certificate that says Jane Doe but all your other documents say Jane Smith, since it was changed after marriage, that won’t work. The requirements would also make it harder for trans people to register.

Next, there’s the changes to registration process. Currently 42 states allow you to register online or by mail. That would be nixed. Voters would have to show up at an office in person to register. Currently signing under penalty of perjury that you are a U.S. citizen is considered adequate, along with proof of residency and documents like an ID (which required the aforementioned birth certificate etc to get in the first place). Under the proposed law, a drivers license would not be adequate in 90% of states. In some areas, voters must travel over 200 miles to get to an election office in person.

Another question is why this would be necessary. While Republicans have been claiming that non-citizens voting in federal elections is a major problem, there is no actual evidence of that. In fact, data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says 0.04% of voters might be ineligible, and that’s considered likely an overcount. When states have tried similar laws in the past, it ended up disenfranchising far, far more legitimate voters than the number of illegitimate voters thwarted.

So what’s the actual effect of this? Mainly, to make it harder for poor people and women to vote, two groups who are more likely to vote for Democrats.

The US has about 3.8 million valid citizens with no official records, and about another 21 million that would need to jump through very difficult hoops in order to obtain their documentation. It’s called the Burned Counties phenomenon, because records were kept at the county level, that had a court house burned down. Or flooded, or destroyed by unrest. We like variety in our destruction.

As will come to no surprise, the majority of those affected, are minorities who vote for Democrats. So the laws being proposed are designed around blocking them from voting, not getting them documented to vote.

Not an american, but I’ve seen this asked before and from what I remember a lot of it was about what counts as valid ID (as the US doesn’t have national ID cards like we do in EU countries), and the potential that the ID required would purposely be something hard to get to various communities that are discriminated against, in an attempt to “rig the vote” as it were

Someone from the US probably has a better phrased explanation tho

Well, it would disenfranchise a whole lot of people due to difficult to obtain (expensive, time consuming) on short notice. If it passed today many would not be able to vote in an upcoming election. It would specifically impact a large block of voters who tend to lean left. Oh, and we already use perfectly fine government issued IDs. This is just an extra hoop for poor people and women. In other words, not needed, voter suppression, targeted, and a poll tax.

I think a lot of it comes down to classism. While it’s probably unimaginable in a developed nation, it’s entirely possible for underprivileged citizens in the United States not to have a government issued ID. The hurdles to get one are also disproportionately greater for those individuals.

It is largely seen as a form of voter suppression. And considering our history of weaponized poll and literacy testing, that’s understandable.

Short answer: The USA has no national ID.

Long answer: instead we have a patchwork of more than 50 different regional IDs (between states, territories, etc.), alongside a half-dozen ill-suited federal IDs, and numerous public and private institutional IDs (like university IDs or Costco cards).

For the most part, all of these cost money. Due to inconsistent systems and sometimes unclear requirements, the people who are most likely to be disenfranchised are also the most vulnerable. Most state IDs require proof of residence like a utility bill, which can be impossible if you are homeless or off-grid. If you are disabled, you may not qualify for a driver’s license (the most common state ID). If you are trans (or a married woman), you may have paperwork with conflicting legal names.

If you are reasonably well-off, on the other hand, you can afford to pay a private company to facilitate your passport application. The US passport is basically the gold standard of national ID, but fewer than half of Americans have one. It requires a certain amount of wealth to even need one, and the expense (money, time, etc) is not trivial.

It is very, very simple:

It is mean to make it harder for anyone that is non-white to vote.

We can parse it finer, but basically white people in aggregate are more likely to have the correct ID, time and ability to vote. Republicans know that this advantages them and so they work really hard to make it harder for anyone but the “right people” to vote.

Their entire platform is basically coded racism, and has been for a very long time. Like any other cult, they justify every transgression by appealing to the “greater cause,” which is not religious in their case but the great promise of elevating those in the “in” group.

What “voter ID law?” It would be unconstitutional to legislate that at a federal level and while I don’t doubt Republicans would love to try it, I’ve not heard about that.

As with most laws in America, voting related laws are passed at the state level. There have been probably hundreds of bills like this over the past 20 years so you’d need to be more specific for anyone to address the “law” singular as you put it.

Can you explain how it works in the EU?

Does the EU specify the rules for how voting works in EU countries?