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Requiring photo id for voting sounds like a good idea on the surface level. For one, it seems like it should help abolish voter fraud. After all, if we require a government issued photo id for voting, it will be that much harder to commit voter fraud. Also, it seems like just a small inconvenience that would not really matter when enacted in the real world. Advocates of this policy ask: what's the problem? I don't care if I have to show photo id to vote, why should anyone? What's the big deal?

The big deal is that requiring photo id is a form of voter discrimination. Everyone over the age of eighteen who is going to vote most likely has a photo id. However, this does not mean they have the id on them all of the time. And what happens if they don't have their id on voting day? They don't get to vote. Of course, they can go get their id and then come back, but how realistic is that? Think about it. With eligible voter turnout around fifty to sixty percent it is hard enough to get people in the voting booths in the first place.

There is a pool of people who have the potential to give up on the democratic process because they were denied their right to vote due to lack of identification. Advocates of photo ids at the polls say: They should have their id on them at all times. This, of course, is impossible. Human beings are a forgetful bunch, and we are generally so concerned with ourselves that we do not have time to notice things around us. Things like a new law that requires photo id for voting. Sure, we may hear the daily reminders from the news, but that does not mean it sinks in, then come voting day, there we are at the polls without are wallets and ids-it was just a quick trip to the polls after all-and the nice voting attendant tells us that we cannot go in the booth because we do not have our ids. Already frustrated, we look at the clock and see that it is 7:57. There is no time to go home, get our wallets, and come back. We do not get to vote.

I have no doubt that people support photo id at the polls because they are concerned with issues of security, and it would be nice if we could find a way to stop voter fraud. I do not think requiring picture id is the way to go, though, as it has the potential to keep those with the legal right to vote from voting.

The voting booth is not a bar. It is not a place of privilege that we go to for fun. The voting booth represents our single most important right as United States citizens: the right to affect change in our government. Anything that impedes that right is unconstitutionally and should not be stood for, otherwise we might find ourselves in the position where our civil liberates eroding and we are powerless to stop it. All because we left our ids in our other pants.

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