Yes, the birth certificate website you need to get photo ID was demanding photo ID to get a birth certificate. Whither Texas, Georgia. Shades, I think, of how Alabama shut down a bunch of their drivers license offices in the Black Belt after raising voter ID requirements.
No state offers a free birth certificate. The cheapest is North Dakota, at $8. Michigan is $34. The average is around $20. Case workers regularly request two or three copies of birth certificates. For people wrestling with chronic homelessness, the odds are they’ll need a spare in under a year.
As you’re thinking about this ID stuff, keep in mind that roughly one in forty Georgians have nothing. That is, they have an annual income between $700 and zero. One in 16 people in metro Atlanta have less than $10,000 in annual income.
So, sure. We’re talking about people who are having trouble keeping a roof over their head. Most people aren’t struggling like this. But virtually everyone you see on the street is a citizen with the same right to vote that you might have. Keep in mind that about four out of ten people who live in metro Atlanta were born in another state and one in seven were born in another country.