Most of us here on dKos know that the voter-ID laws are claimed to be in response to election fraud which almost never happens. I want to look at why it never happens.
The first point to remember is that fraudulent voting has to be committed before the votes are counted. (Fraudulent counting, however, can wait until the other party's precincts have been reported.) Now every cycle brings a few elections decided on a few votes. Going into an election, however, you never know that it will be decided on a few votes; the more important an election, the more votes you need to steal to have a good chance of affecting an election.
The second point is that voter-ID laws are intended to be enforced by the judges of election. (Back when fraudulent voting was rampant in Chicago, the judges of election were at the center of it.) If you have the cooperation of the judges of election, showing a picture ID to them doesn't matter; they simply accept what you show them even if it has a different name than the registered voter's.
Put those together. In order to steal a state-rep race, you have to have fakes impersonate thousands of voters in hundreds -- at least -- of precincts with the judges of election intending to stop that. Well, many judges of election -- most of the judges of election in Chicago -- live in the precinct where they work. If you go in with the ID of John Smith who lives at 123 S. Main St., you have a small -- but real -- chance of the judge saying something like:
"I know John Smith, and you ain't him," or
"I remember Smith's funeral, who are you?" or
"I live at 121, and the Jones live at 123, not the Smiths."
The chances of that happening at any one time are fairly small. The chances of that happening when you repeat it thousands of times approach certainty. The picture that this has been done repeatedly for years with no-one twigging is laughable.
And, of course, anybody who has participated has a great chance to sell his story. So far, all we have seen is right-wingers trying to do it to prove that it is possible, and they have been caught.