Remember Virginia McLaurin? Back in February, she fulfilled her dream of visiting the White House [1] and meeting President Barack Obama for Black History Month. In a video that then went viral (seen above), Virginia danced with joy and even convinced the president and first lady to get in on her moves. Thanks to the popularity of the video, Virgina, now 107, was invited to appear for interviews around the country. But here's the catch: she can't travel because she doesn't have an ID. To get an ID, she needs a birth certificate. And to get a birth certificate, she needs an ID.

According to a report in the Washington Post, Virginia was born in South Carolina in 1909. She now lives in Washington, DC. To get a government-issued ID in DC, she needs a birth certificate. But South Carolina requires an ID to obtain a birth certificate [2]. She's stuck. Here's what she told the paper: "I don't think I'll ever get that face card. I was birthed by a midwife and the birthday put in a Bible somewhere. I don't know if they even had birth certificates back then."

Traveling for TV interviews isn't the only thing you can't do without an ID. In an increasing number of places, you can't vote without one either. Luckily for Virginia McLaurin, DC isn't one of those places and she plans to vote this year. But her case does reveal the downside of restrictive voter ID laws. In theory, they make sense. But when you look at how overly complicated it is to get an ID in America, especially for older people, you begin to realize there may be something more cynical at play. Regardless of the motives, until we make ID laws more straightforward, fewer qualified people will exercise their rights to vote.