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.
You are not required to possess one, no. Someone can exist in the US as a dependent and never need to purchase anything ever because someone else in the household takes care of the finances.
No health insurance, never need to go to a doctor or hospital?
What if you’re ever asked for ID by the police?
Over here, technically you aren’t required to have or carry ID. You just have to be able to show ID when asked by law enforcement. Meaning they can’t simply stop people and ask for ID and fine you when you can’t show one, so not carrying an ID in itself isn’t an offense. It’s just that when they have a valid reason to ask for you ID and you can’t show one, you get a fine for not being able to show ID.
It’s state dependent about requirement to identify yourself go police, but i dont believe its required in any state to carry an ID on one’s person.
If you have to show ID to law enforcement or be fined then you are required to carry ID. Here you have to identify yourself, but you are not obligated to carry ID on you at all times. So if someone walks to a store and pays cash they don’t need to have an ID and cannot be fined or punished for not having one.
It is required for something like driving as it involves a license and carrying it with you when driving is a requirement.
As far as voting goes, in rural areas, especially where everyone knows each other, nobody needs ID because everyone knows Billy was born in the local hospital and lives with his uncle and he was added to the voter role decades ago so when he goes to vote he signed his checken scratch signature and Glenda gave him his ballot to vote. Prior to ID requirements you just verbally said who you were and signed so you couldn’t vote twice and this wasn’t an issue ever.
The whole registration thing is so they knew who is voting where to give them the right ballot for local officials and to keep someone from voting twice and study after study showed it was not a significant problem. Requiring ID to vote only has downsides and is intended to be voter suppression in the US through cost an other obstacles.