[JumpCrisscross]

> you can go to their office and they provide the printed form and a pen

Getting to a government office was historically a barrier. It still is in much of the world.

> there is a law mandating free access to government services

To be clear, I think this is a good thing. I just don't think it's reasonable to assume it to be true.

[tifik]

> Getting to a government office was historically a barrier.

That is a very good point, and something I did not include in my logic. Thanks for pointing that out.

[JumpCrisscross]

It's actually wild to see, across history, how cost of travel was used as a gating mechanism. The example that comes to mind is the Roman Tribal Assembly [1]. While on paper it was egalitarian, in practice only the elites could afford to keep criss-crossing Italy to elect low-ranking Senators.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_assembly