It's exclusionary when voting (in the US) because (1) the states passing stricter voter ID laws are often at the same time are passing laws making it harder for

It's exclusionary when voting (in the US) because (1) the states passing stricter voter ID laws are often at the same time are passing laws making it harder for people to get satisfactory ID, and often the things that are making it harder (closing offices that can issue ID, reducing hours of the offices that remain open) hit much harder in poorer and minority areas (which also happen to be the areas least likely to vote for the party that enacts these laws...), (2) voter fraud is incredibly rare in the US so they aren't actually solving any real problem, (3) and the voter fraud that does occur almost always is via absentee ballots and so is not addressed by the voter ID laws. There are a ton of references in this comment [1] if you want more information on this. If they would first implement a good ID system that makes it so every eligible voter can get a suitable ID easily and for free (like I believe much of the rest of the word does) then very few would object to voter ID. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211079