Should there be stricter voter ID laws? | The Tylt

Voter IDs are a common sense solution that helps secure American democracy. Photo ID is needed for a huge number of day-to-day activities. It's not too much to ask a voter to show their photo ID before voting. 

Photo IDs have become ubiquitous and unavoidable. You can’t cash a check, board a plane or drive without one. That is why it’s not unreasonable to require picture identification to protect our most important privilege of citizenship. And just in case a voter lacks a photo ID, Kansas’s legislation requires that he or she be given one free of charge.
Photo ID requirements are a reasonable way to secure our elections. It’s absurd to suggest that anyone is “disenfranchised” by such protective measures.More states are moving to ensure the integrity of our voting process by requiring photo IDs, not as part of a devious plot to discourage voting, but because voter fraud is a real problem. And it’s a problem that voters want solved.

The problem is there really are Americans who do not own a government issued form of photo ID and more often than not, they are a member of a disenfranchised minority group. Voter ID laws do not actually address voter fraud—it's incredibly rare that people will show up to falsely vote in person. Rather, it's absentee and mail-in ballots that see the highest rates of fraud. 

Voter ID laws deprive many voters of their right to vote, reduce participation, and stand in direct opposition to our country’s trend of including more Americans in the democratic process. Many Americans do not have one of the forms of identification states acceptable for voting. These voters are disproportionately low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Such voters more frequently have difficulty obtaining ID, because they cannot afford or cannot obtain the underlying documents that are a prerequisite to obtaining government-issued photo ID card.