[nocoiner]

As to step 2, agreed - obviously we’re currently living in a world where stuff that seemed well within government’s remit since the ‘30s or so is now randomly determined to be extra constitutional. Who knew! But yes, that needs to be part of the system design.

That said, I still think this is fairly “easy” politically (weird court decisions notwithstanding) because there’s already an existing ID regime in place, and no one is saying that’s not a valid government function (yet). If a state wants to say that anyone can rely on a valid digital ID as proof of identity, that’s fundamentally permissive - if a private entity wants to hold itself to a higher standard, and require that every customer submit fingerprints and a birth certificate, it certainly can - good luck with that. But give everyone else the ability to reasonably rely on a standards-compliant identity app, and I think there will be a lot of voluntary uptake there.

Sounds like we’re probably in violent agreement - a system that makes sense for its users is probably going to be well received. States can lead the way by taking the pretty short step from physical IDs to digital IDs that are really not inferior in any way to the existing regime and potentially quite a bit more secure and convenient.