SANTA FE - A bill requiring most voters to show photo identification appears doomed, the sponsor said Tuesday.

"I am afraid it is," state Rep. Dianne Hamilton, R-Silver City, said after an emotion-charged committee hearing on her proposal.

Dozens of ordinary people from around the state drove to the Capitol to commend Hamilton's bill. They say they need photo identification to check out a library book, rent a movie or cash a check, so a voter should be held to that same standard.

But county clerks, members of the League of Women Voters, and Democrats on the House Voters and Elections Committee opposed Hamilton's bill.

They called it unfair, saying it would create two different "classes" of voters.

Hamilton's bill would require those who vote in person to show photo identification. But absentee voters and tribal members would be exempted from the photo ID law.

Democratic Reps. Debbie Rodella of Espanola and James Madalena of Jemez Pueblo said they would vote against Hamilton's bill Thursday, when it returns to the committee. Hamilton had made numerous, last-minute amendments to her bill, so the committee delayed a vote for two days.

Even without seeing the edited proposal, Rodella said she would not support a bill that would make voting harder or impossible for poor people and old people.

Rodella said she knew lifelong homemakers who do not drive and have no bank account. But they vote in every election. If they had to produce a photo ID, they would not be

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able to exercise their right to vote, Rodella said.

Hamilton's bill contains a provision for providing free state identification cards to people in the situation that Rodella described. But the bill contains no money to pay for any attendant costs, another reason critics said it should not pass.

Perhaps the hardest blow against Hamilton's effort was struck by Douglas Shaw, chief deputy clerk of Chaves County. He said his office uncovered seven cases of fraud in one election - all by absentee voters.

Nobody was prosecuted, Shaw said, despite an FBI inquiry. In-person voting turned up no such dishonesty, he said.

Various county clerks in New Mexico want a photo identification requirement for voters, but they oppose Hamilton's bill and its dual standards for voters, said Daniel Ivey-Soto, executive director of the clerks' organization.

Hamilton said she started with in-person voters as a first step toward eventually creating photo identification requirements for absentee voters.

As for exempting tribal members, Hamilton said, many of them do not like to be photographed. She said she respected this, and decided their tribal number was adequate identification.

Secretary of State Dianna Duran, a Republican, urged passage of the bill. She said the public overwhelmingly wants voter identification.

Elaine Miller, president of the Federation of Republican Women of New Mexico, also testified for the bill. Miller said it was a common-sense approach to keeping elections honest.

A counterpoint came from Roy Streit of Placitas in Sandoval County. He said he had been a poll worker for years, and neither he nor any of his coworkers ever saw or uncovered fraud among in-person voters.

Plenty of times, Streit said, voters showed up at the wrong precinct. Mistakes occur every election day, he said, but fraud was "not even remotely an issue."

Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico.