How photo ID requirement could lead to losing right to vote

Voter ID Requirements Will Disenfranchise More Women Than Men

By karoli

Crooks and Liars

In 2005 I was pulled over for a routine traffic stop. In 2006, I nearly went to jail over it.

It was bad enough that I was pulled over for something I didn't actually do. What made it worse was that my drivers' license, which I had paid to renew a couple of months before, had not been renewed, nor had I been notified that it wasn't renewed.

Driving with an expired license meant they could impound my car and leave me there standing in my PJs after a morning school drop. I opted to walk home and leave the car parked instead.

Unraveling all of this took me some time, mostly due to name changes. I was born with one name, acquired another one in 1978 when I was married for the first time, dropped that in 1989 when I was divorced and went back to my maiden name, then married in 1989 and had a new last name. It's not all that uncommon, actually.

Evidently somewhere along the way the Social Security Administration hadn't caught up with the name changes, so when they ran the renewal for my drivers' license there was a mismatch, which caused my license not to renew, but evidently didn't give the DMV a reason to let me know that.

(More here.)