And, unfortunately, who gets defined as "bad guys" is based solely on which side of the fence you're sitting on. From the left's perspective, we really are a threat to the country--or at least, to the country they're trying to create which makes us the bad guys.

A Federal ID is not necessary as long as the states have the power and the will to investigate each other's voter registrations and search for duplicates. There should be simply a federal offense with a 20-year prison sentence for anyone found to be registered and voting in more than one state, or as more than one person, or falsifying voter information in order to vote multiple times.
As far as the 50%, take heart. Almost all Americans are exposed to 13 or 14 years of Liberal brainwashing by the time they are 18, but only half of them believe it.

Other than they completely ignored the actual uniformity directly specified in the constitution, and have been doing so for a long time.

To wit regarding POTUS:
"The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States."

One day to choose electors, the same across the country.
Early voting stands opposite this. Extended voting stands opposite this. Arguably so does mail-in. Both of which they've tried to work around by not "counting" them until election day. Meaning they know there is a constitutional mandate that there is one day allocated to choosing electors.

And to your point about modifying the constitution via proper amendment, that is how we've done it in the past. In 1965 the federal congress tried to set a lower age criteria (18) across the board, but found they could only do that for federal elections. That was the result of a (divided) SCOTUS ruling.

In Oregon v. Mitchell the court upheld that the necessary and proper clause allows the legislature to set qualifications for federal elections, and federal elections only. Rather than having to maintain separate sets of rolls, an amendment was proposed and ratified fixing the age of adulthood for voting at 18. For citizens.

One thing is repeated across all references to voter qualification and apportionment: citizenship. Under the Necessary and Proper clause, Congress could mandate an ID. Why? Because the Constitution is explicit that only citizens are counted for apportionment and only citizens can vote. Thus, for federal elections, the Congress could enact law to mandate citizens, and only citizens, of the United States vote in federal elections.

But there is a tricky bit there. You see, in the aforementioned SCOTUS decision they upheld a Congressional ban on a state prohibiting a citizen from voting in their state if they can't prove residency. They did so under the notion that to do that in a federal election would be to infringe on your right to freely move about. No kidding:

"There is adequate constitutional basis for the residency provisions of the Act in §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, as there is ample justification for the congressional findings that durational residence requirements abridge the right of free interstate migration -and that such requirements are not reasonably related to any compelling state interests."

and:
"
4. The.residency provisions of the Act are constitutional because Congress, while it does not have general authority to establish qualifications for voting in congressional or presidential elections, does have the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause to' protect the privileges of United States citizenship, including the freedom to travel and to change one's residence."


Now I'd argue that today this does not hold true. Clearly today we can see that states have a compelling interest in only their citizens voting for their state officials at the federal level. In 1970 when this decision was handed down, the idea that people could vote in other states than where they live in enough numbers to make a difference was probably laughable.

Today, with our current capabilities this is not the case. That said, it is stunning to think they concluded that a state has no compelling interest in ensuring that only resident citizens of the state get to vote on who represents the state.

Where the Congress could improve things here (but clearly would not do so) is to establish a system for validating 1) Only citizens are voting in federal elections and 2) that said citizen is voting in only one jurisdiction for federal offices. This would be well within the N&P clause as well as in line with the above SCOTUS decision. Though that decision should be revisited and put into the dustbin.

At a minimum, the federal government, it could be argued, has a compelling interest in each state's offices only being voted on by residents of that state. Even if somehow the states do not.

Faced with having to maintain two sets of rolls, states may well extend their own ID requirement, implement one. In the end, however, the constitution is quite clear that citizens are the only ones considered in apportionment and have the privilege of voting (one of the things that case got right: voting is a privilege); as such mandating photo ID confirming citizenship as well as proper voting jurisdiction would fall under the N&P clauses.

Similarly, and thinking a bit further on it, state ID requirements are not actually an additional requirement being established, merely a means to validate the criteria (legal adult citizen who has not had eligibility lawfully stripped) have been met. Perhaps that is an approach proponents should focus on more - that the ID is to validate an existing constitutional requirement. It would have no effect the ideologues, but could be helpful for developing that understand in others.

So, the states DID do "whatever they want" and they stole 2020. That did not go well. look beyond the simple answer, this has been an engineered effort over the last 80 years, using racial divides and emotional manipulation to culminate in covid. A criminal is a criminal, whether at state level or Fed, and we are infested with them. The rational approach does not work with these creatures. Another revolution is brewing fast.

"Whatever they want" was really just a way of saying "they don't all have to have the same election systems in place". But that was one of those phrases that if I'd been able to say it, with the inflection and sarcasm, it would have been clearer. Sorry.

I would add to your comments about the framers and this topic that they explicitly considered and rejected Congress making the rules. As noted in the SCOTUS case of OREGON v. MITCHELL that I referenced elsewhere, one of the Justices cites the record of the changes and reasonings offered regarding that aspect.

Specifically the original proposal was:
"The iqualifications of the electors shall be the same, from time to time, as those of the electors in the several States, of the. most numerous branch of
their own legislatures." Art. IV, § 1.

"The times and places and manner of holding the
elections of the members of each House shall be prescribed by the Legislature of each State; but their provisions concerning them may, at any time, be altered by the Legislature of the United States." 8 Art. VI, § 1."

Clearly we can see the initial thought was to let the Congress control it when they deemed fit. This was soundly rejected:

--
On August 7, Gouverneur Morris moved to strike the last clause of the proposed Art. IV, § 1, and either to provide a freehold limitation on suffrage or to add a clause permitting Congress to alter the electoral qualifications."

This motion was opposed by Oliver Ells- worth, George Mason, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin. Ellsworth protested that the proposal favored aristocracy. If the legislature could alter qualifications, it could disqualify a great proportion of the electorate.' Mason voiced a similar objection.

"A power to alter the qualifications would be a dangerous power in the hands of the Legislature."

To the same effect Madison said:
"The right of suffrage is certainly one of the fun- damental articles of republican Government, and ought not to be left to be regulated by the Legislature."
The proposed motion was defeated by a seven-to-one vote," and no substantive change in Art. I, § 2, was pro- posed or made thereafter.

Thus, Alexander Hamilton accurately reported the in- tent of the Convention when he wrote in The Federal- ist No. 60 that the authority of the national government "would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the
times, the places, and the manner of elections. The qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the legislature [i. e., Congress]." (Emphasis in original.)
--

And a final note from that case:
"And in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299, the Court was careful to point out that it is the "right of qualified voters within a state to cast their ballots and have them counted" which is a privilege of United States citizenship amenable to congressional protection. Id., at 315 (emphasis added). See also Corfield v. Coryell, 6 F. Cas. 546, 552 (No. 3230) (CCED Pa.)."

So we can see that the Founders did in fact consider the possibility of the Legislature having that authority as well as the risks and dangers of it, and ruled those risks as "too damned high!", one might say, to be allowed that authority.