First things first, I don’t doubt it is a bad thing, considering who supports it and who doesn’t.
But my question is what exactly is the issue and what is the current and proposed voting process when it comes to IDs?
Here in my EU country, you have to show some version of a government ID, be it an ID card, drivers license or passport. And we don’t have to pre-register to vote.
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.