Not too long ago, that was easy in Virginia. Among the wide variety of acceptable forms were a bank statement or utility bill with your name and address, or your state voter registration card, which had the same information.

But after Barack Obama won Virginia in 2008 (he was the first Democratic presidential candidate to take the commonwealth since 1964) and won re-election in 2012, things changed. Voter identification became a matter of great concern to certain members of the Virginia General Assembly.

So in 2013, those lawmakers engineered changes. Bank statements, utility bills and even state voter registration cards became unacceptable for voting purposes beginning July 1, 2014. Since then, voters must present a photo ID at the polls.

But not just any photo ID. As I learned last week at an election officers training session, some photo IDs will work, but others will not. We shall review, so that you can ensure you have the correct ID on Tuesday.

Here are the acceptable forms of photo ID at the polls:

Virginia-issued driver’s license; a (non-license) Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles ID card; any federal government issued photo ID; a photo ID issued by Virginia or one of its political subdivisions; or a tribal photo ID, provided it’s issued by one of Virginia’s recognized tribes.

Also acceptable: An employee photo ID issued by a voter’s public or private employer; a U.S. passport or passport card; a federal military photo ID; a voter photo ID card issued by the Virginia Department of Elections; a student photo ID from any Virginia high school, college, technical or career training institution; or a nursing home resident photo ID, if the nursing home is a government-operated facility, such as by the Veterans Administration.

Now, here are the types of photo IDs that are not valid for voting:

A resident ID at a privately operated nursing home; any out-of-state driver’s license; any out-of-state student ID card; a credit card that has your photo; or a membership card in a private organization, even if it has a picture of you.

Also, an expired Virginia driver’s license, DMV-issued identification card, or passport are invalid, unless they expired less than a year before Election Day. If less than a year has passed since expiration, they’re valid.

Other forms of acceptable ID are presumed valid, regardless of whether they have an address or expiration date, so long as they have a photo of the voter.

All of that sounds pretty cut and dried until you start thinking about the way the rules work, and the types of acceptable ID, and different aspects to those, and the downstream implications.

For example:

An employee photo ID appears to be the most powerful form of identification at the polls. Many of those (such as mine) contain no expiration date whatsoever. The law says only that it must be “valid.” But what does that mean? Is an election officer going to be in any position to challenge its validity? On top of that, the law has no requirement that employee photo IDs be issued by a Virginia employer.

Thus, you could have an ID issued by an out-of-state company — or even an out-of-the country company — and for voting purposes it would be good, seemingly forever. But an out of state driver’s license or out-of-state student ID is no good at all. And even a Virginia license or U.S. passport eventually becomes no good for voting a year after it expires.

From this we can conclude that the law, intentionally or not, appears to favor employed voters over unemployed voters, or retired voters (unless they’ve hung on to their old work ID).

Conversely, if a voter is receiving public assistance or Medicaid, the IDs issued for those services are insufficient for voter identification at the polls.

That’s because a Virginia Medicaid benefits card has no photo, said Steve Martin, director of Human and Social Services in Roanoke.

The same goes for food stamps and welfare recipients. They get an electronic benefits transfer card, but it doesn’t have the beneficiary’s photo, Martin noted.

(Even if the EBT card had a photo, it’s unclear it would be sufficient, because those are issued by a vendor for the commonwealth, rather than Virginia’s government itself.)

Hmm.

A Virginia student ID appears relatively powerful. My son’s, issued by James Madison University, has no expiration date. For voting purposes, it’s more powerful than a Virginia driver’s license or passport, both of which eventually expire.

Also powerful are photo IDs issued by the Virginia Department of Elections. Like many employee or student IDs, they have no expiration date. You can get one of these at no cost through your locality’s registrar.

Interestingly, you need not present any other ID, or proof of citizenship when you apply to the registrar for one.

We can also conclude that, intentionally or not, the law appears biased against elderly voters.

They’re the class of citizen most likely to allow their licenses to lapse, because many of them give up driving. And when that happens, it’s not necessarily easy for them to get the DMV or registrar to procure a valid photo ID.

I could just drive over there for that photo ID card. But an elderly non-driver — assuming they’re mobile — has to take a bus, or a taxi, or arrange for someone to drive them. If they cannot walk easily, that’s even more difficult. (They can, however, vote absentee.)

If they live in a nursing home or assisted living facility, it gets a little stranger. That’s because the aides who work there can use their employer ID to demonstrate identity at the polls. But residents are not allowed to use their resident photo IDs, even though those are issued by the same entity. Unless the home is operated by the government. Then they can use a resident ID.

All of which is to say, the laws concerning voting and photo IDs are far from perfect, and could use further tuning by the Virginia General Assembly.

The way things stand now, employed voters who have a work photo ID have an edge over all other voters. That suggests it might be worthwhile to hang onto an old work ID even after you retire — assuming it has no expiration date like mine.

I’m looking forward to trying out my work ID at the polls on Tuesday. The photo on it is pretty scuffed up, and it was taken 20 years ago, when I was 40 pounds slimmer, and my hair was still dark brown. And half my last name is scratched off.

But hey, it’s a work ID with a photo. I don’t see anything in the law that allows the election officers to reject it.