Pushback against voter ID laws would be ridiculous if those laws were accompanied with measures to make it cheap and easy for citizens to obtains the necessary ID. If those laws were accompanied by such measures most of the pushback would go away.
But in most of the states that have been pushing such laws that is very much not the case. The deliberately pick forms of ID that are less prevalent among poor and minority voters and that for many are expensive to obtain. In several they have also taken measures to make it even more difficult for those people to obtain ID.
For example if they require an ID that you get from the state's department of motor vehicles (DMV) they (in the name of budget cuts) close many DMV offices, and in the ones that remain open the cut back on the hours during which they will issue licenses to a few hours on weekdays. The closures mostly hit in poor and minority districts.
Yes, some of those laws do make some forms of acceptable ID free, but only in the sense that there is no fee to obtain that ID. Obtaining the documents necessary to obtain the ID will still have fees.
But in most of the states that have been pushing such laws that is very much not the case. The deliberately pick forms of ID that are less prevalent among poor and minority voters and that for many are expensive to obtain. In several they have also taken measures to make it even more difficult for those people to obtain ID.
For example if they require an ID that you get from the state's department of motor vehicles (DMV) they (in the name of budget cuts) close many DMV offices, and in the ones that remain open the cut back on the hours during which they will issue licenses to a few hours on weekdays. The closures mostly hit in poor and minority districts.
Yes, some of those laws do make some forms of acceptable ID free, but only in the sense that there is no fee to obtain that ID. Obtaining the documents necessary to obtain the ID will still have fees.