the voter id thing is over simplified, easy sound bite, misdirection selected because having an id to vote has a broad consensus with everybody so long as you don't look beyond the surface of what it actually means:

voters in this country already have id's and have to show id to vote so they're not referring to the act of voting; they're referring to the act of registering to vote because the federal government doesn't define it well so the states insert their own version of it and most of the state governments in this country are republican which use "voter id" as a means to suppress democrat voters within their jurisdictions.

in other words: if you cannot register to vote, then you are not allowed to vote; it doesn't matter that the federal government could recognize your id as legitimate for voting, it only matters than your state does and your state is not legally required to match the federal government's definition of acceptable voting id if it existed. conservative states know this; are a solid majority in this country and are using their majority position to pressure the federal government into adopting it to suppress the other party's voters.

for decades, the conservative state and city governments have been receiving financial and advisory support from dark monied astro-turfed conservative movements that have spent millions of dollars and decades worth of experiments on cherry picked court cases and using their relationship with the governments to test out policies that could have the effect that conservatives desire to see in our society. using "voter id" is something that they spent a lot of time and money and effort reviewing over and over again and it was money will spent because now people think they know what it means based on it's name; but that understanding is shallow.

it’s bonkers to me that having ID is not mandatory in the US. do all these rednecks think that SSN is number of the beast or something

The real problem isn't convincing people they should get an ID. The problem is that there is no existing federal ID standard outside a passport, and getting a passport takes a significant amount of time and money. In most states, you do have to have an ID to at least register to vote, and in many you have to show ID when voting, it's just that the requirements for ID vary from state to state and, again, there's no federal standard. The Republicans screaming for voter ID laws know all this, but they refuse to do anything to fix it first. Make of that what you will.

On top of all that, there is zero evidence that we have a problem with non-citizens trying to vote. It just doesn't happen. Why would they? What would they possibly have to gain by taking the risk of being caught?

But I bet they won’t.

they literally didn't the last time around like they didn't every single time before then; why would they next time?

They don't want a national ID system because then they couldn't pull any of this garbage and obstruct people's right to vote.

they've always fought a federal ID as far as I can remember. Its similar to how most talk about the border then like staff their mansions with undocumented immigrants. Or how they talk about the deficit and inflation then skyrocket both. They know the media is owned by their friends and will shield them from any sort of accountability.