Trying to wrap my head around "Poverty is not an excuse for government malice". Poor people are to blame for Republicans trying to disenfranchise them? Certainly those who vote for Republicans I guess...

Seems like you aren't in the US so maybe you don't know the history. Basically the US has a very long history of white supremacists protecting their own power and wealth at the expense of non-white people through disenfranchisement. This continues today. I'm arguing from the point of view that this is bad and should not be a basis for policy.

It's not that it's impossible for some practical reason, the problem is that the republican party (which still holds a huge amount of power at the federal, state, and local level even when they don't hold the presidency) actively wants to deprive people of their voting privilege because they suspect those people might decide to vote against them.

I said voting privilege here but I should have said "right to vote"

In India, it is law that there must be a place to register for an ID every X miles from a village, and that the IDs are free of cost. The government even ended up building tons of registration building up in the mountains where nomadic herders live.

In America, when voting license legislation is passed, the government shutdown DMVs making it difficult and expensive to get a voting license.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

From your article, it looks like you can apply online for voter ID in India, and mail in identity documents. It is also free to obtain. That's voter ID done right.