I don't know about the specific state the commenter is referring to, but this article from a couple years ago discusses some of the laws passed that (intentionally or unintentionally) make it more difficult for certain demographics to get an ID: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/getting-a...

> How do they require minorities to have ID but not whites?

By only asking minorities to prove they are carrying ID. "The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books.

Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too.

>"The law" is what gets enforced, not what it says on the books.

>Edit to add: as people are getting all up in arms about rural areas, they should recall that this tactic was broadly applied by the New York City police department too.

"Organized Democracy" by Melanin 9: `youtube-dl -f mp4 'QPls-Gi_4Ig'` speaks to this very much.

I'm also pretty sure no state managed to successfully pass and keep a "bathroom law", especially after the enormous outrage against North Carolina.

I'm pretty sure the comment didn't say that.

To be clear, I was responding to this:

> Are you a blue-collar minority? Unless you know exactly when and where to go to get a license, then voting is practically impossible.

How else can you interpret this? Blue-collar minorities are less capable of knowing where/when to get a license than blue-collar whites? Or perhaps the "minority" bit is a red-herring altogether and the salient criterion is "blue-collar"?

Or groups of people live in certain geographic areas and are not served by public transit or near government offices like a DMV. That can have the effect of making it generally harder one one group despite equal competence.

This would be interesting and I’m curious about the extent to which this happens, but this hypothesis doesn’t support the claim that “absent information about getting an ID, it is nearly impossible for blue-collar minorities (but not their white counterparts) to vote”. Also, if you lack access to public transit, I would expect you’re more likely to have an ID, not less so.

Literally there are states where they closed voting locations and DMV locations in predominantly minority areas. They created a requirement for a license and then claimed it would only impact 16 year olds and they would "drive to people's houses" at the same time that they claimed they were "out of money". Nevermind that the whole state has an issue with not enough polling stations.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-licen...

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/georgia-county-abandons-pl...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/10/30/midterm-elect...

No. The discriminatory nature of laws like this work on statistics. While something like a drivers license with a street address isn’t discrimanatory per se, when you look at the groups that are adversely effected and how those groups correlate with voting preferences, a pattern emerges.

For instance, the lack of a street address in North Dakota pretty much only effects those living on an Indian reservation https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/native-americans-north-dakot...

Say you need a state issue I’d, but then limit access to those ids in specific areas, as Alabama did in 2015. http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/01/as_it_turns_out_...

In Texas, researchers ran an an analysis of where these laws have the most impact and found that the largest contributing factor to predicting disenfranchisement was race. https://www.wired.com/story/voter-id-law-algorithm/

> Blue-collar minorities are less capable of knowing where/when to get a license than blue-collar whites?

But your comment wasn't suggesting this. You were suggesting that the law was explicitly discriminatory to require minorities alone to need ID and whites could vote without ID.

I think you misread my comment. I was very careful not to suggest that "the law was explicitly discriminatory". I'm merely asking how they accomplish the alleged discrimination.