Alabama exemplifies the problem with voter ID - After they went and put together a voter ID law, they then closed down a bunch of DMV's, making it substantially harder FOR people to get ID's. I suspect that's the goal - make every election a mid-term election.
Yet your paragraph contains two huge glaring omissions:
1. Alabama made voter IDs completely free. No charge to get one whatsoever.
2. You can obtain them at places other than DMVs. You can get them at the SoS office, and each county's Board of Registrar's Office. EVERY COUNTY THAT HAD THEIR DMV OFFICE CLOSED HAS A BOARD OF REGISTRAR'S OFFICE.
It astonishes me how every supposed "journalism" piece about this (including NY Times) completely omits those facts.
