[/b]The voter may also have to take several hours off of work[/b] and travel significant distances to visit government offices open only during select daytime hours. Finally, many identifying documents cannot be issued immediately, so potential voters must allow for processing and shipping, which may take from several weeks to an entire year.
The impact of ID requirements is even greater for the elderly, students, people with disabilities, low-income individuals, and people of color. Thirty-six percent of Georgians over 75 do not have a driver’s license. Fewer than 3 percent of Wisconsin students have driver’s licenses listing their current address. The same study found that African Americans have driver’s licenses at half the rate of whites, and the disparity increases among younger voters; only 22% of black men aged 18-24 had a valid driver’s license. Not only are minority voters less likely to possess photo ID, but they are also more likely than white voters to be selectively asked for ID at the polls. For example, in New York City, which has no ID requirement, a study showed that poll workers illegally asked one in six Asian Americans for ID at the polls, while white voters were permitted to vote without showing ID.
*These statistics were compiled by NYU*
And just to highlight the issues everyone of those groups except the elderly poll overwhelmingly for Democrats
The fact of the matter is study after study shows this to be the case. Illegal immigrants by and large do not try to vote anyways so the only people effected by these voter ID measures are people who should be allowed to vote.
oh and preemptively:
Proponents often cite fraud or the potential for fraud to justify new ID requirements. There is no question that election misconduct exists, including improper purges of eligible voters, distributing false information about when and where to vote, stuffing of ballot boxes, and tampering with registration forms. But there is no evidence that the type of fraud addressed by stricter voter ID - individual voters who misrepresent their identities at the polls - is anything but an anomaly. In Ohio, a statewide survey found four instances of ineligible persons voting or attempting to vote in 2002 and 20042C out of 9,078,728 votes cast - a rate of 0.00004%. Despite the invocation of fraud as support for the new Georgia law, Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox has stated that she could not recall one documented case of voter fraud relating to the impersonation of a registered voter at the polls during her ten-year tenure as an election official. Nationwide, since October 2002, 86 individuals have been convicted of federal crimes relating to election fraud (including several offenses not remedied by ID requirements), while 196,139,871 ballots have been cast in federal general elections. Statistically, Americans are more likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning.