This neglects states where it is illegal to have both a state ID and a driver’s license, people who can’t afford both, people who can’t afford a passport etc.

I did only say state id in my original post, because I personally don’t have a driver’s license, but I really meant any form of state identification. Sorry if that was unclear. I have edited the post. As for “people who can’t afford a passport”, well, there’s also the option of getting a passport card for $65 ($30 for the card, $35 for the processing fee if getting a card for the first time. When renewing the card, you only pay $30) and the card lasts 10 years, so it’s pretty inexpensive. But also a passport isn’t terribly expensive when you consider the fact that it’s valid for 10 years. Lastly, I wanna say that I am not neglecting people who can’t afford passports; it’s the federal government who’s doing that by requiring a real id. Also, I said in another comment that if you absolutely need a real id right now, then you should keep it. Just consider getting rid of it as soon as you can.

You’re also neglecting that plenty of states haven’t enacted a mandatory Real ID program yet or it hasn’t gone into affect yet, however that may happen in a year, two years etc and so not getting a Real ID upon renewal will end up costing them more money they don’t necessarily have.

I’m not sure what you mean. In another comment I listed the five states that only have real ids and said that the residents there should protest to their state legislators and governor. I never said that you shouldn’t go without an id at all.

Your reasons for not getting a Real ID aren’t even particularly clear and you didn’t answer any clarifying questions.

What makes the Real ID more dangerous than a State ID or Passport?

How are my reasons unclear? I explicitly said why in my post: the secretary of homeland security has unilateral authority to expand the official purposes of the real id. Can the secretary of state do that for passports? Can a state executive officer do that for a state id? Additionally, in another comment, I said that there are plans to make real ids digital and accessible remotely and in real-time according to AAMVA testimony: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/HM/HM07/20231205/116640/HHRG-118-HM07-Wstate-GrossmanI-20231205.pdf. This would allow the government to revoke your digital real id in real time if you say or do something the government doesn’t like. A digital real id would also make it much easier for the government to track you. Passports, by contrast, are probably immune to digitalization for this century, as the US would have to convince 150+ nations to accept a digital passport. (I should have mentioned this in my original post, but I thought it would make my post too long.)

Is there a reason to believe that this regime or one in the future will preclude Real ID from being used to prove things like citizenship status or voting rights?

There is no reason to believe that, which is why we must fight back now, before 90%+ of Americans have a real id, making it easier to do what you said. We have proof that we actually can resist. Because of efforts from state legislatures and people around 2008-2010, the DHS’s real id rule from that time was largely ignored. The ACLU even declared in 2012 that the real id was “dead” (source: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/real-id-dead-new-mexico-ids-will-continue-be-valid). That’s proof that we can resist this.

[By the way, if you’re curious about the reasons why Real ID was able to survive past 2012, it’s because 1) around 2016, the federal government started saying that you would need a real id to fly, while acknowledging in a small footnote that there are 15 other acceptable ids that the TSA accepts, including passports. So people started pressuring their state legislators to comply. 2) The Real ID office at the DHS colluded directly with state DMV chiefs to prepare for real id implementation: “Nevertheless, it is telling that despite what was happening at the higher level, DMV chiefs were largely cooperative with the REAL ID Office. One interviewee said that although some governors prohibited their states from becoming compliant with REAL ID, those states still implemented perhaps 95 percent of the Act’s requirements. State DMVs would use the language of being ‘consistent’ with the Act’s requirements, rather than ‘compliant,’ thereby avoiding embarrassing their governors, while at the same time making the licenses more secure” (source: Magdalena Krajewska’s 2020 journal article, “Implementing the REAL ID Act: Intergovernmental Conflict and Cooperation in Homeland Security Policy”, https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaa010).]

Is the process to receive a Real ID in some way more of a risk to personal privacy?

If it is a risk, what are the risks to personal privacy while getting a State ID or Passport?

One risk is that it makes it easier to create a national id database. Now, the real id act doesn’t explicitly create a national database. However, what the federal government did do is it offered federal funding to each state to cover the costs of implementing real id, but “to be eligible to receive such grants, states shall provide electronic access to their databases to all other states” (source: same journal article as above). Meaning that if Texas and New York both accepted federal funding and the federal government wanted access to New York’s database, it could just ask Texas.