http://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/FullReportVoterIDJune20141.pdf
1. Time costs involved in learning about photo voter ID requirements and how to meet them.
2. Costs of purchasing required birth, marriage, naturalization and other certificates. In some
instances, the calculations include legal fees needed to secure these documents.
3. Costs of travel expenses to the departments of vital records and motor vehicles, and the
potential cost of hiring a driver and/or vehicle.
4. Costs of travel time and waiting time at the agencies.
For many people, paying the cost needed to meet voter ID requirements means spending the equivalent of more than a week’s worth of groceries. In fact, some citizens simply cannot afford the costs required to obtain these IDs. Still others can never get the documents they need to qualify for a voter ID. In short, under these laws, those citizens who cannot get IDs will pay the ultimate price in a democracy: they will lose their right to vote.
Here are the estimated expenses incurred by the three individuals in each of the three states in pursuit of a “free” voter identification card:
Pennsylvania:
Voter #1: $133.61
Voter #2: $172.39
Voter #3: $107.25
South Carolina:
Voter #1: $166.50
Voter #2: $92.50 ($1,047.50 if pro bono legal fees calculated)
Voter #3: $99.75 ($1,449.75 if pro bono legal fees calculated)
Texas:
Voter #1: $79.26
Voter #2: $87.96+
Voter #3: $148.46+
(Further down)
In sum, voter IDs are expensive, often prohibitively so. And their costs can produce the constitutionally impermissible effect of abridging or denying individual citizens their right to vote. The total costs to citizens in all voter ID states for “free” IDs, plus state government expenses for producing those “free” IDs, can reach into the multiple $100s of millions.