You’re thinking of the 24th Amendment, which reads:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
The way your state (and many others) gets around this is because the fee to get your ID is not technically a tax. It’s a fee. It’s a rather silly semantic difference, but that’s how the law works. You’re not paying a tax, and your right to vote isn’t being restricted because you didn’t pay a tax. You are being required to have a photo ID to vote, and the form of photo ID you’ve chosen to get (which might well be the easiest to access) requires you pay a fee to acquire.
Yes, this seems like a minor pedantic difference, but that’s kinda the point. The people who push these voter ID laws are doing the exact same thing people in the Jim Crow South did when they created poll taxes, poll tests, grandfather clauses, etc. They are trying to skirt around a law (in this case, the 24th Amendment, back then the 15th Amendment) in order to restrict the right to vote from people who should be protected.
You’re thinking of the 24th Amendment, which reads:
The way your state (and many others) gets around this is because the fee to get your ID is not technically a tax. It’s a fee. It’s a rather silly semantic difference, but that’s how the law works. You’re not paying a tax, and your right to vote isn’t being restricted because you didn’t pay a tax. You are being required to have a photo ID to vote, and the form of photo ID you’ve chosen to get (which might well be the easiest to access) requires you pay a fee to acquire.
Yes, this seems like a minor pedantic difference, but that’s kinda the point. The people who push these voter ID laws are doing the exact same thing people in the Jim Crow South did when they created poll taxes, poll tests, grandfather clauses, etc. They are trying to skirt around a law (in this case, the 24th Amendment, back then the 15th Amendment) in order to restrict the right to vote from people who should be protected.