system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:How voter ID laws are discriminatory

Texas' ID law just got repealed for "unconstitutional" and discriminatory to minorities. Exactly how is it discriminatory? Exactly how does one go through an entire lifetime without any form of identification?

Edit: Awesome response guys. All the answers are good, and talk about how difficult it is for people who are allowed to vote to obtain ID. A new question I want to ask is what is in place to prevent people who aren't eligible to vote from voting? Is there anything at all or is it based off of a sort of honor system?
gpt
Well, voter ID laws by design make it more difficult to vote - the idea being that if it's too easy to register to vote, people might do so fraudulently. In fact, there's little evidence of that type of fraud occurring.

To answer the question:

1. Voter ID laws typically require a potential voter to obtain a specific form of identification at cost to them. In effect, requiring that one purchase the ability to vote (a poll tax), and a barrier to the very poor.

2. Voter ID laws typically require a potential voter to obtain an ID from a specific location or set of locations, in some cases that may be dozens of miles away (in the case of Texas, some people have to travel >100 miles). This is problematic if the person cannot drive and no transportation is available to them (elderly and rural poor), and also difficult for people that have jobs that do not give them time off to do so.

3. Voter ID laws require documentation that may be difficult to obtain and is typically not available free of charge. Passports and birth certificates require money to obtain, and an out of town birth certificate can be complicated to obtain (depending on where you were born). Not all US citizens have birth certificates on file.

Not everyone gets a driver's license, since car ownership is beyond their financial means, or because physical limitations prohibit their qualification as a driver.

According to census figures, about 11% of US citizens do not have a government issued photo ID (about 25% of voting-age African-americans and 8% of voting-age White Americans). 18% of those over 65 do not have a government-issued photo ID.