Congressman Conyers here claims that 1 specific part of these reccomendations, the photo ID, will disenfranchise roughly 10% of Americans.

"The simple fact is that many minority and poor voters do not have the time, money or need to purchase a drivers license." -Conyers

A driver's license is not the only form of picture ID available in this country. The IN DMV offers ID cards that are nearly identical to a license. The DMV site does not say what the cost is for one of these cards, but I would be surprised if it were more than $10.
It appears to me that Conyers, and the democrat dissenters, are attempting to prevent measures that would reduce the likelihood of repeat and fraudulent voters.
Do they think a significant number of their votes come from these sources?

As JP notes, Rep. Conyers ignorantly assumes a driver's license is the only available ID. But even assuming that all black voters are "disenfranchised" by the requirement of an ID (do all black voters lack IDs) - and they are not - how many more are disenfranchised by allowing people to vote without IDs?

Given how effectively disenfranchised the relevant class of voters already is, I think a better approach than this particular sort of hand-wringing would be to adopt the proposals, but to add a program to facilitate the acquisition of photo (non-driver's license) IDs.

What kind of program? Walking to the DMV with your info, waiting for the friendly lady at the counter to call your number, and getting your picture taken is about as easy, though boring, as it gets.
Another government program is not the answer.

Considering Motor Voter, what is the likelihood that these non-ID holders are even registered to vote? Perhaps they are senior citizens who have been on the rolls forever? I have to agree that getting a photo ID is not difficult or unreasonable.

Walking to the DMV with your info, waiting for the friendly lady at the counter to call your number, and getting your picture taken is about as easy, though boring, as it gets.

However Indiana Photo-IDs do cost money, which I think could be construed as a poll tax and certainly would be argued as such by the ICLU and/or ACLU. Make those ID’s free and the burden would fall back on the political parties to register and get their voters credentials in order.

This should only leave out the individuals who are against IDs for some religious reasons, or those that are against them because of some anti-government control stance.

I'm pretty much in agreement with the last commentator. I'd also add that, if one changes the law in this way, it really would be necessary to put some funds -- I don't think it'd take much -- to try to publicize the change; and to facilitate people's getting of those IDs, in terms of both the fee & also the time (so people wouldn't have to skip work). If you're going to make something a requirement for voting, you really have to bend over backwards to make it easy for would-be voters to meet that requirement.

Is there any reliable evidence that not requiring a Government issued photo ID actually caused a problem in the past?

Just for what it's worth, when the Photo ID bill was going through the Indiana General Assembly, The House Republicans voted against:

# a provision that would have allowed a voter, in lieu of a photo ID, to sign an affidavit which would subject them to perjury prosecution if they were voting fraudulently and would have subjected absentee voters to the same ID requirements if they were casting their vote in front of an absentee voter board or voting absentee at the Clerk's office.

# a provision that would have required a precinct election board who prevented a Hoosier from exercising their right to vote for failure to produce identification to provide the voter with information advising the voter of 1) the permissible forms of identification; 2) the requirements for having the provisional ballot counted; 3) contact information for the circuit court clerk, the voter's senator and representative, the toll-free number staffed by the election division, and the election division's web-site.

# a provision requiring the secretary of state, before each election, to send notice of the identification requirements for voting to each person who registered to vote after the most recent primary or general election.

Does anybody pay any attention before running their mouths anymore? The commission specifically stated that they recommended that every state should make a substitute photo ID available FOR FREE to anyone who needed it in place of a driver's license.

If they could just do that at the polling place the day of the election, there would be no problem.

In any event, I thought the discussion had drifted over to the ID requirement recently adopted by the Indiana General Assembly.

Sorry, Doug but in anything resembling the real world if you want to do something about voter fraud same day won't cut it. The commission had other recommnedations to make it as easy as possible for people to register. They included things like not only having motor voter but mobile registration offices that could go to any number of community gatherings. Nothing is going to be perfect but I think that the commission's recommendations do a pretty good job.

Congressman Conyers here claims that 1 specific part of these reccomendations, the photo ID, will disenfranchise roughly 10% of Americans.

And what percentage of non-Americans?

Oh, and what percentage of dead Americans? And multiple-voting Americans?

I seem to recall the Simpsons clearly telling us that the dead voted Republican?

Just that one time, and it was a special case, because some of them had probably died when the stadium collapsed.