'Poll tax!' they cry: the democratic response--written in stone.

I DON'T know about you, but when I go to vote on a Tuesday morning, I just waltz into my polling place, say, "Hi, I'm Jay," and proceed to the booth. Then I vote for the most right-wing candidates I can find. This doesn't mean much on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but it provides a certain satisfaction.

I'm not asked for any proof that I am who I say I am, or that I live in the neighborhood, or that I'm an American citizen, or that I'm not on the lam from Sing Sing. The ladies just smile at me (if they're in a decent mood), and in I go.

Given how regulated a society we are--it can be an ordeal just to obtain a library card--it's amazing that voting is so easy, or lax, if you like. And this doesn't sit well with many conscientious citizens.

I have a friend who's as stubborn and principled as his name (which I will drop): Solzhenitsyn. When he goes to vote--Philadelphia area--he takes his passport with him. He virtually insists that the poll workers look at it. But they won't, acting as though that would be a criminal offense.

Which brings us to the Federal Election Integrity Act, better known as the Voter ID Bill. It passed the House on September 20, pretty much on party lines: The Republicans were for, the Democrats against.

Under this bill, you would have to show a photo ID to vote in a federal election, starting in 2008. (That gives you two years to get your act together.) Starting in 2010, you would have to show the kind of ID that proves you're an American citizen, too. This builds on what's called the Real ID Act, approved last year. An anti-terror measure, it establishes national standards for such items as driver's licenses. And the Carter-Baker commission on elections--that would be the 39th president and the former secretary of state--urged that ID be required for voting.

All right. But what if you don't have the proper ID and can't afford to get one? Under the Voter ID Bill, the government would pay. And what if you happen to forget your ID on Election Day? You may cast a provisional ballot, and come back with your ID within two days.

Sponsors of the bill say that this is a commonsense law to curb fraud and protect the integrity of the electoral process. Michigan congressman Vernon Ehlers said, "Our voting rights are too important to rely on an honor system." (Such as we have at my place.) Supporters also point out that we have to show photo ID for a great many things in society: to drive; to board a plane; to enter government buildings; to cash a check; to apply for student loans, or Social Security, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or food stamps. You even have to show a photo ID to rent a movie. As Ehlers commented, "This is not a new concept."

As of now, 24 states require some sort of identification at the polls, and seven of those require a photo ID. These measures have been challenged in court, and will be for a long time to come. The new bill, of course, would impose a federal requirement.

And every time somebody--usually the Republican party--suggests a tightening of the voting rules, we have our national drama: One side cries race, and, more specifically, "Poll tax!" And the other side--the Republican side--says, "I'm not a racist. I just want honest elections." It has been observed that most situations in life remind Jesse Jackson of Selma. So too, any attempt at electoral reform reminds some people of the poll tax. The poll tax, as you know, was a vicious thing that kept southern blacks from voting until it was abolished in 1964 by the Twenty-fourth Amendment.

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After the Voter ID Bill passed the House, the whole Democratic universe said "Poll tax." Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Woman Who Would Be Speaker, threw in "literacy tests" and "grandfather clauses." Sen. Harry Reid spoke of a "dark era," Sen. John Kerry of "the Jim Crow era." You can sing along, you know these tunes. Atlanta congressman John Lewis--a bona fide civil-rights figure--took to the floor to say, "We fought too long, fought too hard, and suffered too long for the right to vote. People died to participate in the democratic process. We must not turn back the clock."

Maybe when he reflects on that statement, at some cooler date, he will be slightly ashamed of it.

Responding to the chorus of "poll tax," Republican congressman Henry Hyde tried to explain, "Voters who cannot afford an ID will be issued one for free. That's some kind of poll tax--that somebody else pays for." But once you've said "poll tax" or "Jim Crow," you've pretty much ended the debate. Race is the greatest conversation-stopper in America.

The New York Times, naturally, did its best to pile on. Its editorial began, "One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party's strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression." Referring to the House bill, it continued, "The Senate should not go along with this cynical, un-American electoral strategy." Remember the rule: When you call a Democratic idea "un-American," you're McCarthy; when you call a Republican idea "un-American," you're a patriot.

Before it finished, the Times warned that "if this bill passed the Senate and became law, the electorate would likely become more middle-aged, whiter and richer"--three strikes and you're out!

Some days later, the paper published a reporting piece, the star of which was one Eva Charlene Steele. She appeared in the opening paragraph and the last. Mrs. Steele is a 57-year-old woman who needs a wheelchair and lives in an assisted-living facility in Arizona. She told the Times that it is impossible for her to obtain the ID that the state requires for voting. She has submitted an affidavit in a lawsuit. She feels particularly angry, she said, "because my son is fighting now in Iraq for others to have the right to vote, and I can't." Thus did the Times hit the anecdotal jackpot.

Of course, the other side--the pro-reform side--has a store of anecdotes of its own: about illegals being registered en masse, about dogs and cats and dead people on the rolls, etc. (Strange how pets and dead people tend to prefer Democrats.) Earlier this year, a Democratic candidate in California made a little news when she told a Latino audience, "You don't need papers for voting." I'm not sure she was wrong.

Usually, Democrats take care to throw Hispanics into their litany of the disenfranchised, along with the poor, the old, and the disabled. Sometimes the rural are included. And, after Voter ID passed, Ted Kennedy even mentioned "members of some religious faiths." I think he may mean that Saudi-style Muslims aren't so hot on photos, especially for their women. I'm not sure. But I imagine that Republicans, in their reasonableness, would welcome religious exemptions--as in Quakers and the draft.

But at the core of Democratic rhetoric is race, and the special history of black Americans. As I said, everything is Selma and the poll tax. And I've often wondered why black Americans, in a vocal and organized way, don't take offense: at the manipulation of history, and its attendant cheapening; and especially at the suggestion of ineptitude.

The NAACP might put out a statement that said, "Thanks for your concern, dear white liberals, but we can show an ID as well as anybody else. We aren't peculiarly handicapped in this respect, or any other. Hard as it may be to believe, we even board airplanes, every day. Some of us even fly a few. And you should see us rent movies!"

But the NAACP never says anything like that. It merely joins the Kennedys and the Pelosis in accusing the Republicans of an electoral lynching.

Back in President Clinton's first term, the country had a debate over "Motor Voter," that floodgate to fraud. A piece in these pages ended sighingly: "We must question the motives of those who have made voting the only government-sponsored activity that does not require an ID." The terms of the debate really haven't changed; everyone is playing his expected part, saying the expected things. (That includes me.)

But the stance of the public is pretty clear. According to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, 81 percent support Voter ID. And with support like that, a bill ought to be a piece of cake, politically. But the House Republicans are fairly brave to press forward with Voter ID. The reason is the toxicity of our racial politics. Electoral reform brings you almost nothing but grief. Who needs John Lewis telling you you're the modern-day Bull Connor? No one's sure whether Voter ID will pass the Senate, or even be taken up by it, anytime soon.

Speaking for the bill, Congressman Ehlers acknowledged that Voter ID would be controversial. "I wish it were not so. It seems we should all be able to agree that voting should be limited to citizens of the United States, because that has been the law for years. If we can agree on that, we should be able to agree that our voting systems must have procedures in place to ensure it."

Yeah, lots of luck. There may come a day when you can propose ballot reform without being called a racist; but it isn't here, and, if I were you, I wouldn't wait up nights.