WASHINGTON—Steve Pacewicz of Madison, Wis., is such a political junkie that he can speak intelligently about Canadian pipeline proposals. His Facebook page is plastered with images of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Until recently, though, he didn’t think he was going be voting in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

He didn’t think he could afford it.

Pacewicz, 56, is a homeless man who sleeps in his truck. Wisconsin has a new “voter ID” law that requires every voter to show specific kinds of photo identification to cast a ballot. If a voter wants to obtain that identification while keeping his driver’s licence, it costs money. Pacewicz, who works odd jobs, doesn’t have any.

He only managed to get the card he needed — a duplicate of the licence he said he never received in the mail — when a non-profit group called VoteRiders paid the $14 fee for him. If it hadn’t, his only other option was surrendering his driving privileges in exchange for a free non-driver ID.

He is still indignant.

“I don’t have much in this world, but I know I’ve got rights,” he said. “I have to trade my driving privileges for my right to vote? That doesn’t make any sense. Isn’t that kind of like Jim Crow laws? The new version?”

As the world fixates on the results of the voting in two fiercely contested primaries, another intense struggle is playing out at the same time: the latest round of America’s endless brawl over who gets to vote and how easily.

The forever-simmering issue was brought back to national attention by a fiasco last month, when thousands of voters in Phoenix waited in lines as long as six hours to vote in the Arizona primaries.

“People who . . . maybe this was their first time voting . . . I’m afraid this was such a bad experience that they’re probably not going to want to do it again,” said Michelle Arndt, 50, who waited in line from 6:30 p.m. to midnight.

The lines were so gigantic because Maricopa County officials had cut the number of polling places from 200 to 60. The officials were only able to do so, voting rights advocates say, because of the 2013 Supreme Court decision, Shelby County v. Holder, which invalidated a key section of the federal law designed to protect minorities.

The Voting Rights Act had required eight southern states with a record of election discrimination to secure federal permission to make any changes that affect voting. Those states are now free to make all the changes they please.

Phoenix is 41 per cent Hispanic, 7 per cent black. In an angry letter to the federal Department of Justice, its mayor alleged that the county had served “predominantly Anglo communities” with far more voting stations than minority communities got.

Advocates say the Arizona fiasco is ominous foreshadowing of election injustice to come in November’s general election and beyond. (Sixteen states are introducing new voting restrictions this year.) Sean Young, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project, said the south will keep having voting disasters if Congress keeps refusing to pass a new version of the Voting Rights Act.

“The month that Shelby County came down, North Carolina immediately moved with one of the most vote-suppressive measures that we’ve seen. Immediately after Shelby County came down, Texas rushed to implement its strict voter ID law that seven judges have already found have a racially discriminatory impact,” Young said.

Other voter ID laws, though, have been endorsed by the courts; the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s in 2008, saying the government has a “valid interest” in modernizing elections and deterring the voter fraud the Republicans behind the ID laws say they are trying to thwart. Some judges have ruled that the laws do not impose a major burden on citizens.

But Democrats, civil liberties groups and other judges note that actual evidence of voter fraud is exceedingly rare. They say Republicans are merely trying to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Stringent ID requirements, they argue, are a significant obstacle for people who don’t have a licence, a car or good health — people who are disproportionately likely to be poor and non-white.

“If you notice that they’re requiring you to forfeit your driving privileges or pay a fee, it feels like it’s essentially a poll tax, which I thought was unconstitutional,” said David Fisher, 31, who works the night shift at a Wisconsin drugstore. A former Minnesota resident, Fisher faced a fee of about $35 to trade in his licence from there, which Wisconsin no longer accepts as proof of identity for voting purposes. VoteRiders paid for him.

Canada had its own voter ID controversy when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives tightened the law in 2014. But Canada still allows more than three dozen kinds of identifying documents, including bank cards, library cards, even blood-donor cards.

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In Wisconsin, only a few kinds of identification are now accepted: a licence, a passport, a military card, a college student card, or the free non-driver ID. And some would-be voters still have no idea they need these kinds of ID at all. Wisconsin’s Republican government, led by Gov. Scott Walker, has failed to fund the public education campaign that was promised under the new law.

Debra Shaub got her free ID after a VoteRiders leader, Molly McGrath, encountered her at a church meal for the needy and drove her to the licence office. Shaub wanted to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t win, but she was nervous about navigating a bureaucratic process, and she didn’t know if she was up for making the trip alone. She lives in an apartment for low-income people with disabilities.

“I’m a very forgetful person,” she said. “I’m going to be 60 this year, and my mind’s not working so well. I’m kind of afraid to get on the bus and go someplace I’ve never been. I don’t want to feel lost.”

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