There are no protests of "inconvenience" for all these other near-universal activities. Where are the Democrats claiming this is keeping their constituents out of college?

The anti-voter-ID controversy looks a bit suspicious. Even laws where the state government offers to give voters IDs for free, or accept many other forms of ID like tribal IDs, are opposed by Democrats just as vehemently.

(Here in California, IDs for the poor cost 7 bucks every five years. Free for senior citizens. Most states have similar deals.)

Finally, "cooked" elections have a long and colorful history in Democratic politics. In places like Chicago, it's a running joke.

I'd be interested in who you think the "rabble" is. Who exactly are these miserable people with no drivers licenses, no work IDs, and too poor to afford seven dollars every five years. Who for some reason are unable to fill out applications or to find any friend or social agency to help them do it. People who are completely unable to meet what is probably the lowest bar for legal voting in human history short of "has a pulse."

Who exactly are these people? I'd be careful before you back into anecdotes.

And why is this "rabble" you talk about so damn essential to the Democratic Party? Why does any effort to put up anti-fraud barriers scare the Democrats so badly?

One hypothesis that covers a lot of the facts above is that there has already been a lot of organized voter fraud under the radar where it doesn't show up easily, and they don't want a spanner in the works now.

As vote-by-mail becomes more prevalent, and cheating that way becomes even easier, I predict this whole anti-ID thing will fade out.