Jimmy Carter and James Baker respond to critics of their report in this NY Times oped. Most significant I believe is the fact that James Baker signed on to this statement about Georgia’s i.d. law: ” We consider Georgia’s law discriminatory.” Carter and Baker also take an important step here that was not emphasized in the report: voter i.d. rules should only be implemented with the government proactively registering voters.

Yes, we are concerned about the approximately 12 percent of citizens who lack a driver’s license. So we proposed that states finally assume the responsibility to seek out citizens to both register voters and provide them with free ID’s that meet federal standards. States should open new offices, use social service agencies and deploy mobile offices to register voters. By connecting ID’s to registration, voting participation will be expanded.

But the other serious problem with Carter-Baker remains: people who don’t have or who have lost ids get disenfranchised. As the oped makes clear, by 2010, anyone who could not produce the physical id within 48 hours of voting would be disenfranchised. Far better, as I’ve argued, to give the alternative of using biometric information like a fingerprint.
See also this Mobile Register editorial and Doug Chapin’s director’s report from Electionline, which should be available later today at this link [Update: It is here].