There’s no shortage of controversy these days surrounding voter ID laws, which are in effect in 30 states. Because the 24th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits poll taxes, states that require voter IDs must provide identification cards to voters at no cost. In 2002, at the federal level, the Help America Vote Act required voter IDs be provided for all new voters in federal elections, provided the voters have registered by mail and did not provide either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Proponents of voter identification laws believe that requiring voter ID will help prevent fraud and ensure voting integrity, while opponents take issue with the current system of identity verification. Although the most common form of ID in the U.S. is a driver’s license, some voters are less likely to have a license. In some cases, residents were never issued a birth certificate, which is required to receive a driver’s license. If a license is the most accepted form of ID, this could have a substantial discriminatory effect on minorities.

Social Security numbers, another form of voter identification, are notoriously susceptible to theft and fraud, rendering them less reliable. Thus, while Social Security numbers are universal, they cannot always be trusted, and while a driver’s license is more reliable, it is not made universally available.

There might be a solution that provides a system of personal identification that is both universally available and reliable. Thanks to the growing popularity of smart card technology, it’s becoming more viable to issue free voter identification in the form of a card that contains all of the necessary information to vote, drive, purchase alcohol and more.

According to proponents of this idea, encryption technology would allow all information beyond a person’s name and photograph to be divulged only to specific scanners. For example, a poll watcher on Election Day would only be able to access information regarding whether or not a person is eligible to vote. An employer could only see if a potential employee is eligible to work in the U.S. and liquor storeowners would only be able to see whether a person is at least 21 years old.

In many ways, this would be an improvement upon the current system. Currently, a store clerk, when verifying a customer’s age, is presented with a driver’s license that includes an address and sometimes a Social Security number, severely compromising the cardholder’s privacy.Using the proposed smart card technology, this dilemma could be eliminated. It may soon be possible to issue a free card to each U.S. resident that contains all necessary identification information, assisting with voter identification while protecting the ID holder’s privacy.