This summer, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court gutted section 4 of the Voting Rights Act — striking down key requirements to allow changes in election laws. The changes being adopted make an already difficult task for broke, inexperienced college voters more burdensome.

This decision allowed for 17 states with historically racist election laws, including Louisiana, to implement voter ID laws which require voters to show a valid, government-issued ID in order to vote.

This sounds harmless enough. What could the problem be with requesting voters to prove who they are at the voting booth? Under the guise of preventing voter fraud, Republican-controlled states are systematically moving to depress turnout at the polls.

It is key to understanding why these laws are so insidious to know that there are no substantial cases of voter impersonation at the polls — which is the only type of voter fraud ID laws would prevent.

The Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Justin Levitt has been tracking all major allegations of voter fraud for the last few election cycles. Levitt explained during that time there had been 200 individuals alleged to have committed voter impersonation. If every one of them turns out to be a genuine case of fraud, that’s a fraud rate of 0.00002 percent.

According to the New York Times, Washington Post, The Voting Rights Institute, the Justice Department and others, these voter ID laws disproportionally affect people who are economically insecure. The poor, urban communities could see 600-800,000 disenfranchised voters, and the media has done an honest job at exposing this.

Voters not mentioned as much are college students, who are often quite economically unstable.

There is no reliable data that provides the number of college students who lack the proper ID to vote, because student bodies change from year to year.

The cost of these IDs is the real problem. Between negotiating time with your boss to drive to the DMV and the thirteen dollars on average it costs to update your license, college voters have a hard time fitting this bill.

These laws are solutions looking for problems. They make no sense if you are assuming the primary reason for passing these laws is to prevent fraud. I think it is objectively fair to say that these laws aim to depress voter participation for key constituencies that oppose conservatives.

The laws being implemented would also cut early voting days and disallow college IDs as an acceptable form of identification — which don’t affect voter impersonation at all and college students often rely on both.

For the record, these laws have only been written by Republican legislatures, signed by Republican governors and they mostly affect people who do not vote for them.

Draw your own conclusions, and be sure to take a non-expired government issued ID to the polls this Tuesday, Nov. 4.