Could a voter ID compromise be a win for voting rights?

Faced with the reality that their ambitious voting rights reform plan may be permanently stalled in the Senate, Democrats have begun to soften their opposition to a policy they once criticized as the epitome of voter suppression: voter ID laws.

The specifics vary from state to state, but voter ID laws generally require a person to present some form of identification in order to cast a ballot. These laws were relatively rare in the United States until the past two decades, when they became increasingly common in states led by Republican...