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The Center for American Progress reports
As residents of Arizona's eighth congressional district cast ballots in a special election to replace former Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in Congress, roughly 140,000 of them may be unaware they are eligible to vote because they did not receive the ID card the county is required to send them after they register.
According to the Arizona Republic, Maricopa County officials have not sent all voters the cards they can use to cast a ballot under Arizona's voter ID law because of an issue with the company used to print the materials. The paper reports that just 60,000 ID cards have been mailed to people who recently registered or changed their registration, while about 140,000 have not been sent.
[...] Arizona was one of the first states in the country to enact a non-photo voter ID law when a ballot measure was approved by voters[1] in November 2004. Under the law, the state must take steps to ensure that all eligible voters have an acceptable form of ID. According to the secretary of state's office[PDF], "a county recorder must issue a voter ID card to any new registrant or an existing registrant who updates his or her name, address, or political party preference".
But because of an error by the company used to print the ID cards, they have not been mailed out since December.
Although these citizens could provide other forms of ID at the polls, some voters told the Arizona Republic they're concerned that less informed voters may not realize they are registered without the card.
[...] During the presidential primary in March 2016, some Maricopa County voters waited in line for up to five hours to cast a ballot. The chaos led to an investigation by the Department of Justice and numerous lawsuits, including one filed by the Democratic National Committee.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, Arizona was required to pre-clear any changes to its voting law with the DOJ.
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday April 29 2018, @02:37PM
Its a massive simplification, probably, such that given 50 possible ways to identify, its always possible to find like 25 free ones.
In my state they solved the problem by making ID cards free. For everyone. But, as I previously wrote, its a massive simplification. There's a web site for my state with the detail which are at least two pages printed out, posted at every voting location every time there's a vote, so since there's not much else to do while waiting, I've read it several times and its changed a lot over the last 20 years. In my state you can also use passports, "free" military ID cards including active AND retired IDs (well, they were free when I was in the army a quarter century ago), a certificate of naturalization, various native american tribal documents, higher educational institution ID card (they removed K-12 in the last decades, I used my high school ID the first time I voted a long time ago), "Confidential electors" basically convince a judge to order the muni court clerk to issue permission to vote anonymously and they give you a little form to hand in when you vote. The weirdest restriction is you can use military ID cards to vote, but not federal or state government ID cards to vote.
Abstraction never fixes anything. In that to get a free ID card you need to prove your name and birthday, which takes another states ID card or DL (which probably costs money) or passport (hundred bucks) or birth certificate ($20 in my county). Now to order a copy of your own birth certificate in my county to get that free ID card, you need a government ID (catch 22) or two of: an old fashioned printed out mailed bank statement (micro $), a current signed dated lease, health insurance card (including medicare medicaid or whatever its called), traffic or other muni ticket (some $), a utility bill (not including internet or cell phone), or finally a vehicle registration not including municipal bicycle registrations. So technically its impossible to get a "free" ID card without having at one point in your life having at least minimally participated in society to the level of $5 or so. I don't see that as a serious problem. Note that the card is free in that a copy of your birth certificate is free in perpetuity, my mom ordered a copy of my BC decades ago and I still use it, I think its in my credit union safe deposit box along with other interesting things.
The real problem is the standard left response to increasing voting regulation is it never happens so we should never ever defend against fraudulent votes, which is kind of like saying cute animal species rarely go extinct and nuclear plants rarely melt down so we should actively and aggressively via court orders prevent people from trying to prevent such events solely because they don't happen often. Or take for example, murder by handgun, which as a statistical event is extremely rare, therefore we should do everything in our power to remove all regulation and legal control of it solely because it is a rare event. The left KNOWS the problem is large, therefore intense pressure is put to claim its irrelevant.