January 10, 2008

Very Few Voters Lack Photo ID

Based on a random sample of registered voters in Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland, a new study by American University's Center for Democracy and Election Management (CDEM) finds, surprisingly, that only 1.2 percent of registered voters lack a government-issued photo ID, and more than two-thirds of all registered voters in the three states feel that the electoral system would be trusted more if people had to show an ID to vote.

The full report, Voter IDs Are Not the Problem: A Survey of Three States, is available online at http://www.american.edu/ia/cdem.

The press release itself is chock-full of data showing that voter photo ID requirements are not the evil that Democrats claim.

"In brief, the fears that ID requirements could disenfranchise many voters appear unfounded simply because almost all registered voters have photo IDs," said Professor Robert Pastor, co-director of CDEM. "Our report notes that the laws and the application of ID requirements have not been implemented uniformly and gradually, and this has fostered the impression that it is designed to disenfranchise. States could transform what was perceived as a problem into an opportunity by sending mobile units to actively register voters and provide them free photo IDs."

This week the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments about an Indiana state law that requires a photo ID.

Opposition to voter IDs has come largely from those who fear that this requirement will disenfranchise voters who do not have IDs or would find it difficult to acquire them. But they were unable to locate a single individual in Indiana who was prevented from casting a ballot because they lacked an ID. This survey suggests why. Only 1.2 percent of registered voters in the three states surveyed lack a photo ID, and in the Indiana survey, only 0.3 percent lack a photo ID.