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Comment by lukeschlather | Hacker News Reader

How much does a photo ID cost? It's a poll tax any way you slice it.

About a decade ago my ID expired. This wasn't a huge deal since I don't drive and rarely travel. About a year ago I did want to hop on a plane to visit my nephew in San Diego. So I was thinking getting a new ID wouldn't be a huge problem.

So I go into the DMV with my expired ID and expired passport and a stack of mail with my current address and a stack of debit and credit cards and my social security card. They will not do anything without my birth certificate. Crap.. Lost that when my basement flooded. I will head over to vital records.

Then the lady at the DMV told me that they closed down the vital records office in Eugene and my only option was to go to Portland. So right here I have to spend 60 bucks on a round trip to get to Portland two hours away.

So I get the bus the next day and go to vital records. Again more expense for the Max. So I get them to print out a birth certificate. I had to pay 40 bucks for them to do it. Then they want to see my ID. Wait it is expired. They will not accept it.

I am told my options are to have a parent or sibling come in to vouch for me. Difficulty.. Parents are dead and my sister at the time lived on the east coast.

So here I am stuck. I know, I will have my sister get on a plane to come out here. It will cost but it needs to be done. So she does. So now I need to pay for a last minute ticket for her. And shit, it will be a while so I need to get a hotel for the night. And I should probably cover my sisters lost wages for a few days.

In the end I got my birth certificate. Off to the DMV where I paid 40 bucks for a state issued ID.

This all was fantastically expensive.

And really.. They closed the vital records office in a city that has 200,000 people. The only option for the entire state is Portland. One office for 4 million people and Oregon is a physically large state.

So yes.. Getting a state issued ID can be incredibly hard and expensive. Even if everything was perfect and I was able to easily get the documents it would still be 80 bucks to just get a ID card.

You must be a bit of a hermit ;-). There's a list of documents that you could have brought any three of, which includes things like utility bills, paystubs, insurance policy, personal check, etc. Sixteen different options, and I honestly don't know anybody in my circle of friends who couldn't pull off at least three of them.

I otherwise agree with your point, if it is that ID is too expensive to require for voting. It amounts to a poll tax.

Better to make it the job of a federal agency. Let's call it the Federal Elections Commission. ID is free, and they track you down to issue it, kinda like the census. Then I might be able to support requiring the ID for voting.

I had utility bills since that is pretty much the only mail I receive. And I had checks and pay stubs. They were very clear. No birth certificate no ID. I had my insurance card too. And funny enough my voter registration card too. For some reason I keep that in my wallet.

Sorry, I think I wasn't clear -- at the DMV you were definitely out of luck without the birth certificate. I'm just saying there is a pretty wide open list of what would have worked for getting your birth certificate from vital records. Utility bill, paystub, and personal check should have done it as all are on the list of sixteen choices. Still a great big hassle, but cheaper and faster than flying out your sister from the east coast :).

It's a chicken and egg problem. I understand and respect why they want to make it hard to get the birth certificate since we've made it the key to the kingdom. It used to be quite easy to get when I was younger, I for some reason have three copies of mine from over the years.

>Sixteen different options, and I honestly don't know anybody in my circle of friends who couldn't pull off at least three of them.

Not everybody is so lucky unfortunately.

The cost isn't actually the main barrier to availability of ID. It's mostly the timing. They're typically only available at a DMV office, which are only open 9-5 on weekdays (or similar hours). This means taking a day off work, which for many poor people would be a major expense. Most won't have any form of paid time off, so they lose at least the days wages. Not to mention how few DMVs there are in many regions, and the resulting transportation expenses (need to take an express bus to get there in in time to wait in line and get the ID before they close).

Many places with voter photo ID laws provide nondriver IDs for free.

With how much paperwork required and at what cost (time, money) to obtain? And, like Texas, are the places to obtain ID few and far between?

https://rewire.news/ablc/2014/10/16/well-actually-pretty-har...

Right, it takes paperwork to verify identity, otherwise the ID would be worthless. I've also never met an adult that _doesn't_ have some form of photo ID.

I understand that it's important to protect our poor and all that, but requiring proof of citizenship to vote seems pretty important to me in our democracy, and is an incredibly low bar that nearly everyone is already capable of meeting.

I’ve never met one either, but that could not be any less relevant. The ACLU says that 11% of American citizens have no ID.

https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...

That statistic came from the Brennan Center for Justice, which has a history of bias-driven research[1]. They have also taken massive donations from George Soros. I question the legitimacy of their "research."

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Brennan_Center_for_Justice#Bias

edit: Why am I being downvoted for doing research on citations? It's kind of important to be critical of these kind of things.

Ok, how about another study. 100k in Wisconsin alone.

http://www4.uwm.edu/eti/barriers/DriversLicense.pdf

That research is incomplete. Look at the bottom of page 3:

"A portion of the population without a drivers license – whether valid or not – will have a photo ID, but without an analysis by race and location, it is not possible to estimate that population. "

The question here isn't whether or not they have valid drivers license, it's whether or not they have a valid photo ID good enough to vote with.

Thank you for providing that link, though. It's less biased than the others so far.

It’d be one thing if the politicians pushing voter ID were also pushing hard on making it easy, but when you look at Alabama cutting off access to IDs st the same time they’re requiring them, it’s hard not to draw obvious conclusions about intent.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/alabama-drivers-licen...

I agree completely. IMO, voter ID laws should only be legal if photo IDs are free. If a state simultaneously restricts access to IDs while requiring them, then that's voter suppression.

I’d argue free isn’t enough. Free and accessible is necessary, but given how hard it is to obtain a birth certificate e.g. there’s more to the problem.

Honestly where does this George Soros Boogeyman spring from? His philanthropy seems way less insidious and society undermining than the Kochs, Mercer, DeVos.

I guess it depends on where you sit...

How do you know? Do you ask everyone you meet for an ID?

There's a lot of people who live in the "fringes" of society who don't have an ID.

My uncle, for example. He lived with my grandma his whole life and didn't have a driver's license, car, or a job other than to run errands for my grandma.

I also have a friend who does not have an ID. Her husband takes care of everything and she doesn't drive.

It's unusual but not illegal to live like that.

Well, anecdata aside, an estimated 20 million Americans don’t per one study.

http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/do...

> I've also never met an adult that _doesn't_ have some form of photo ID.

I'm sorry you live in a bubble and can't see past it.

In Pennsylvania, about $30. That's at the high end. In Ohio, it's $8. Generally good for four years. Is $2 per year an impediment to voting?

The cost of the id itself is only part of the real cost. There's transportation expenses, taking time off work to go, in some cases it is expensive to get the documents necessary to even get an ID like a birth certificate

Of course it is.

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