Voter ID laws are in the limelight right now, and they are causing controversy. Since it’s election season, we have been experiencing the expected explosion of rhetoric.  This voter identification hullabaloo has tested the public’s ability to differentiate real issues from the hyperbolic rhetoric.

The law is designed to combat voter fraud. It requires voters to show government-issued photo identification at the polls. But, many people see this as a manipulation of the voter pool and by extension the validly of our democracy.

“I could see it as a legitimate threat because if those who don’t have the means to get the required documentation can’t be represented, that skews the voter pool,” said senior Ned Denton.

According to democrats.org, 11 percent of Americans—approximately 23 million citizens of voting age—lack proper photo ID. It would cost the government at least $276 million to provide the IDs.

“Voter ID laws are a clear ploy by Republicans to disenfranchise low-income minority voters” says VHS alumni Jack Denton, who is currently a sophomore at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

“It costs money to get a government issued ID, so the laws essentially constitute a de facto poll tax, which is illegal under the 24th Amendment. That being said, a court struck down the Pennsylvania law, and the laws were scrapped in Wisconsin and Texas, so it is not clear that the laws will have any real effect in any swing states. So will the legitimacy of the election be threatened? Probably not. But the legitimacy of our polity is most definitely threatened when the sovereignty of a portion of its citizens is at risk.”

Whether it’s a ploy or a legitimate law, it’s happening. By 2013 and 2014, Mississippi, Texas, South Carolina and Alabama will be implementing voter ID requirements.