There were voter ID stories everywhere today. The New York Times has a great piece on the impact of voter ID requirements on voters in Arizona and elsewhere. To get a sense of the impact of the law in Arizona, consider this from the Times story:

In Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest in population, election officials said that 35 percent of new registrations were rejected for insufficient proof of citizenship last year and that 17 percent had been rejected so far this year. It is not known how many of the rejected registrants were not citizens or were unable to prove their citizenship because they had lost or could not locate birth certificates and other documents.

Spencer Overton, who will be attending the VTP conference on voter identification and registration in Boston, was on Talk of the Nation talking about IDs as well. The show’s tease (from the NPR website) says:

You need photo identification to board a plane, write a check, even to enter some government buildings, so why not to vote? To supporters, a proposal to require photo ID at the voting booth is a way to reduce fraud. To critics, it’s a 21st century poll tax.