Here are some non-anecdotal reasons why it's hard to get. Texas is a big state under budget constraints. Some counties are so sparsely populated that it's not cost effective to have a driver's license office in the county so they closed them, so you have to travel to another county. Since you don't have a current driver's license, that means someone has to drive you. That's a round trip for two, on a work day, of a few hundred miles in order to get an ID recognized by the new state law.

You could argue that another form of legal photo ID should suffice, as was done in the TX legislature, but they specifically EXCLUDED student ID's from Texas universities and tribal IDs from Native American tribes (recognized by DHS to board airplanes, though) when they ADDED the Texas Concealed Handgun License as a valid form of ID for voting.

The current law requires you to show your voter card - which is mailed to your home of record - or, if you don't have that, THEN you show a photo ID and the they match you against the rolls.

So people who were registered, had voted in the past, and who have current valid photo IDs valid for nearly every purpose except voting now need to get a new ID.

Or they can simply claim a religious belief in not having your picture taken and vote anyway without a photo ID.

I think it's a great law and a wonderful use of the millions of dollars spent on drafting, defending, advertising the new rules, and disrupting the electoral schedule just to possibly reduce the likelihood of one person voting in place of her dead mother - in which case she probably looked like her mom's photo anyway.

It's not like they could have looked at absentee ballot fraud, or something. Gotta spot impersonation at the polls!