Voter ID

I watched the segment of John Oliver's show on voter ID this morning online. Before you start I know he is a comedian, but he's a political one and a lot of people who don't want to watch more serious news seem to get their impressions from these types of shows. My own son once said to me he and his friends got their news almost exclusively from the Daily Show, much to my dismay. Not that it was the Daily show so to speak, but that it was the only place they got news from. I'm not going after Mr. Oliver, hell I think he's funny and for comedy sake alone, I thought the video of this subject was humorous. I'm simply tossing out a different opinion and at the end I will propose what I think is a simple solution to this controversy. In typical comedic fashion he skewered the idea of needing identification to vote. He showed clips of less than favorable advocates speaking in favor of requiring voter identification while tossing out statistics of a study that show African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by this law. I imagine this is true because studies show that a disproportionate number of those same groups are in poverty. One of the clips shown was of a man who pointed out that some of the opponents to voter identification were in favor of an ID to buy "stuffy nose medicine". John Oliver tells us that voting is a right (Duh!) while saying that the reason we have to show ID to buy that medicine is because it's used in drug production (also a DUH!). So he justifies needing an ID for medicine, which by the way although not in the Constitution, is still a right to do as long as your not doing it for illegal purposes, but denies justification for an ID for voting. A clip he used to make the case that this type of law is racist showed an elderly African American woman stuck in the bureaucracy trying to get an ID and having a really hard time of it. How many people haven't faced this type of bureaucracy in their life from local, state or federal government? Show of hands please. I'll throw out a list of "Duh" things you need an ID for of my own here. When you get a job, you have to show ID, when you buy beer, you may have to show ID, and when you apply for social security or any other government run program like medicaid etc... you have to show an ID. Does planned parenthood not require ID? No I'm asking that question for real, I've never been there. If we follow John Oliver's logic then having to show an ID for all these things that are within the realm of our rights, is also racist as they still affect a unbalanced number of previously mentioned groups. Why not stop there either, marriage licenses, acquiring drivers licenses, getting bank accounts, and traveling on buses, trains, or planes also requires ID. Does that mean that white people, males in particular, are using this practice of showing ID to hold everyone else down? Is the requiring of ID to vote inherently racist? My opinion is no, but I'm willing to acknowledge that it does affect certain groups more adversely than others because of the poverty statistics. That's a fact I don't think can or should be ignored. So the solution I would offer to this is simple. For those people who live in a household under a certain yearly threshold limit, I'll use twenty thousand as an example but the figure can be adjusted to match actual needs, a free ID could be issued. We have other services for low income individuals and families why not make this a part of those services? This provides ID for those who could not otherwise afford it, and because poverty is unequal in this country, I believe it takes out the argument of race from the voter ID law and the argument dealing with voter fraud on account of a lack of an ID as well. It's up to the individual states to do this but if you feel this is a good idea, contact your local lawmakers and ask them to consider this option. Make it so that everyone can vote with less burden.