In my experience in an EU country, sufficient ID was also provided freely by the government (eg a social security card).

This is not something in the US that is free. ID must also be a photo ID. So let's say you have a job where you work 7 days a week and take the bus because you don't have a driver's license. To get sufficient ID you must then: take unpaid time off of work, get to an office that issues ID, pay like $20 for such an ID... All to have the opportunity to exercise the right to vote.

This is both a tax and an unreasonable burden, effectively disenfranchising millions of poor people.

This is solvable though, if the government issues free IDs and sets something up to facilitate people getting their photos taken. However that would never be executed effectively, nor would people support paying the costs.

A current example is states invalidating all Trans people's IDs during a primary election. That's happening right now.

Also - getting an ID is expensive and time consuming in the US. The cliche of spending 4 hours in line at the DMV to get a license even though you made an appointment ahead of time isn't an exaggeration, and applies to getting an ID as well. The reality is most people won't spend the time and money to do it just so they can vote every 2 or 4 years - especially people who can't afford to take a day off work and travel to do it.

But people will do it so they can drive their car every day - so people with IDs are more likely to have more money.

And for people who have driver's licenses that fall on hard times it's also a problem, because they stop paying for insurance (invalidates driver's license), lose their car (keeps them from paying for insurance or renewing license), or even lose their home (address change invalidates license). These are not people who can take a day to go pay to vote. And that's exactly what they'd be doing, because the new ID card they'd be buying would strictly be for voting. Aside from the cost of the ID, when I updated my DL in June I had to travel 80 miles round trip, and the process took about 7 hours - and I had a car to speed things up.

So it's effectively pay-to-vote system that only applies to poor people. People with money can vote for free through "motor voter" registration by checking a box when getting or renewing their driver's license.

In the US, there is no free option for public ID. Voting is a right. You are required to prove identity at the time of registration, which can be done using your birth certificate.

Essentially, the push for photo ID is a way to disenfranchise poor people, women and trans people, and other groups who may for whatever reason not have easy access to an “acceptable” ID.

Historically our courts have found that creating a financial barrier to voting is a violation of the constitution. The current Supreme Court, staffed entirely by far-right activists rather than serious jurists, is far less likely to rule that way, so anti-democracy folks are pushing to establish a new precedent before the court can be reformed.

In the USA the issuing of IDs will be made deliberately difficult enough to discourage cartain demographics in a way that favours Republicans. For example, it may carry a fee so poor people are discouraged, it may require your birth name and gender so trans people are discouraged, it will require birth certificates and marriage certificates so immigrants and women are discouraged. The whole thing will be used to erode the numbers of non-white-male voters and this disproportionately boost the right.

Kansas Republicans just invalidated the driving licenses of trans people overnight with no warning. We can expect the same kind of political shenanigans with Real ID.