Daniel Jenkins has volunteered to boost voter turnout on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus since becoming a student there in 2022. Jenkins, now a junior studying political science, has spent years helping other students fill out voter registration forms and walking them through information about polling places and hours. He also reminds them they’ll need to bring an ID to vote. That last part, he reassures them, should be easy, since Indiana’s voter ID law allows state university students to present their campus IDs at the polls.
“That’s good enough for most people,” he says. “A lot of them will just happen to have it on them anyway.”
But Indiana may soon make voting much tougher for college students: Legislation banning the use of student IDs for voting passed the state Senate with near unanimous Republican support in early February and now sits with the GOP-run House.
Jenkins, who led voter registration efforts for IU Bloomington’s College Democrats during the 2024 elections, told Bolts that banning student IDs at the polls would add a significant barrier for many students who want to vote. If a student who just moved to campus before a fall election can’t vote with their university ID, and doesn’t already have another ID issued by the state of Indiana, they’d then need to trek to the closest BMV office miles from campus and supply documents that can be tricky for students to obtain—all during a busy season of classes and midterms.
Students are eligible to vote in Bloomington regardless of where they’re from. But in practice, “the passing of this bill would just make it almost impossible for out-of-state students to do so, especially if they don’t have a car,” Jenkins said. “And it’s definitely an issue for in-state students, too. Not all of us have driver’s licenses.”
Kylie Farris, the election supervisor in Monroe County, where IU Bloomington is located, confirmed that many local students rely on these IDs to vote. She told Bolts that her office doesn’t record what type of ID voters show, but she still estimated that two-thirds of people who cast ballots at the only on-campus polling place this November used a student ID.
Jenkins shared his concerns with lawmakers in late January by testifying against Senate Bill 10 in a committee hearing. Days later, the Senate passed SB 10 on a vote of 39 to 11. Every Republican supported it except Senator Greg Walker, who joined Democrats in opposing it.
“I think at best, it’s a misguided policy that is building on anti-student sentiment, and at worst, it’s a targeted form of voter suppression to try to make it harder for students to vote,” Jenkins told Bolts after the Senate passed the bill.
Voting rights advocates have now shifted their focus to the House, which reconvenes next week for the second half of the state’s legislative session. “I am hopeful that with continued grassroots pressure we will be able to kill SB 10,” said Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, “but it’s going to take a lot of work and some luck.” She hopes to persuade the House Speaker Todd Huston, who indicated some broad reluctance to overhaul election laws in early February. (Huston did not return a request for comment from Bolts.)…
Category Archives: voter id
“Donald Trump Announces Plan to Change Elections”
Sort of. The Newsweek headline should really read “Donald Trump Announces Policy Goals” for elections, since all of what he’s proposing would require legislation: “We’re gonna do things that have been really needed for a long time,” he said. “And we are gonna look at elections. We want to have paper ballots, one day voting, voter ID, and proof of citizenship.”
“The Surprising Impact of North Carolina’s New Voter ID Law”
NY Times: 2024 is the first general election under the state’s new voter ID law. Overall, the new voter ID law did not result in many votes being rejected. That said, the current law is significantly more voter-friendly than the original, which drew the legal challenge. North Carolina’s law is still stricter than most because it requires both mail and in-person voters to show proof of identity.
“But unlike the 2013 law, it offers voters an array of acceptable ID cards, from drivers licenses to student IDs to free state ID cards. If voters have no ID — older people who do not have a driver’s license and mail voters who do not have printers to copy their IDs, among many others — they can ensure their ballots count with the affidavit of explanation, or can show an ID later at a local elections office.”
Lots of interesting facts in this article:
- “November’s election offered some evidence that the voter ID law disproportionately hindered Democrats. Of the 2,169 provisional ballots involving ID problems, registered Democrats cast 42 percent, registered unaffiliated voters 30 percent and registered Republicans 26 percent, said Michael Bitzer, an expert on North Carolina politics at Catawba College.”
- Even a small impact might matter, as in the tight race for the judicial seat in NC this cycle.
- “Today, however, at least 35 states have ID requirements, a prerequisite that has become broadly popular among voters across party lines who see it as a common-sense precaution.”
Given the complete lack of evidence of in-person voter fraud, the popularity of these last still baffles me!!
Report: About 252,000 Texans Lack Voter ID and Would Need to Fill Out a Reasonable Impediment Declaration to Vote (and More Stats on Georgia)
“Republicans Ask US Supreme Court To Reinstate Arizona Voter Suppression Laws”
The Democracy Docket: The Republican National Committee and Arizona Republicans applied to the Supreme Court for emergency relief to reinstate Arizona’s strict proof of citizenship law.
“Republicans ask the Supreme Court to reject state voter registration forms if the voter did not provide documentary proof of citizenship with their application and block voters who have not provided documentary proof of citizenship from voting by mail or casting votes for president.”
Currently, because the law which governs state forms is blocked, “Arizona voters who register using a state voter registration form and have documentary proof of citizenship on file at the DMV will be fully registered,” even if they did not provide provide citizenship proof with their application to register. Meanwhile, the lower court has ensured that Arizona voters, who register using the state form, will not be barred from voting in federal elections even if they are have not provided documentary proof of citizenship because such proof is not required by federal law.
“Transgender voters say they face photo ID barrier”
Photo ID concerns across the pond.
“[NH] House Kills Citizenship Documentation Requirement for Voting”
An update from the NH Center for Public Interest Journalism on one element of the package of bills Rick noted a few days ago, even as a similar bill waits for the Governor.
California tussles over pockets of election administration
This Politico piece describes a fight that’s probably as much about statewide uniformity v. local control as it is about voter ID and securing data.
“Alabama GOP chair used homemade ID to vote. AG doesn’t seem to care.”
A very weird story about the chair of the Alabama Republican party using a very weird homemade photo ID to vote, in a way that sure seems like it doesn’t meet Ala. Code 17-9-30. (And allowing a one-person exception might well be a violation of federal law – 52 USC 10101(a)(2)(A) – too.)
I’m all for flexibility to allow a wider variety of ways for eligible voters to show that they are who they say they are. But that flexibility should be available to everyone, even if you’re not the state party chair.
“One of the biggest changes ever proposed for Colorado elections is on a journey to this November’s ballot”
Colorado Public Radio with more on the proposed initiative to implement a top-four primary with ranked-choice voting for the general election.
Meanwhile, there’s a signature campaign in Maine to get two initiatives on the ballot: voter ID and a repeal of participation in the national popular vote compact.
And don’t forget Arizona’s ballot measure to make ballot measures impracticable.
“Johnson’s ‘intuition’ clashes with data on illegal voting”
The Hill: The numbers, agreed on by both left- and right-of-center institutes, speak for themselves:
“The Brennan Center study from the 2016 general election showed an estimated 30 incidents of suspected — not confirmed — noncitizen votes out of 23.5 million, which is 0.0001 percent of the votes cast. So the Speaker’s intuition is incorrect,” she told The Hill.
That’s a conclusion that’s also been reached by the libertarian Cato Institute, with one of its experts calling the claims one of the “most frequent and less serious criticisms” relating to migration.”
“Huntington Beach on collision course with California over voter ID requirement”
Huntington Beach voters are poised to adopt a pair of measures pushed by local leaders seeking to remake the Orange County city into a bastion of resistance against liberal California — likely setting up a showdown with the state over voting rights that could further galvanize conservatives.
With tens of thousands of ballots from the March election counted as of Wednesday evening, a charter amendment that would allow the city to require voter identification in municipal elections led 54% to 46%. Another to restrict which flags can fly on city property, effectively banning displays of the rainbow LGBTQ+ Pride flag, was winning with more than 58% of the vote.
Both proposals emerged from a new conservative majority on the city council, elected in 2022, which has spent the past year on a contentious campaign to reverse any past progressive governance that they argue is out of step with the community’s values. The crusade has thrust Huntington Beach into some of the country’s fiercest cultural battles, including over vaccine mandates, transgender athletes and library books.
“This is the direction that the community has been wanting to go,” said Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark, a Republican who led the effort to establish a committee to monitor library books for sexual content. “If they didn’t want this, they wouldn’t have voted and supported this.”
The election will not be the final word, however.
Last fall, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, both Democrats, warned Huntington Beach officials that the voter ID proposal — which would take effect in 2026, and also grant the city authority to add more in-person voting locations and monitor ballot drop-boxes — conflicted with state law. They contend that requiring voter ID violates a provision in the election code that prohibits “mass, indiscriminate, and groundless challenging of voters solely for the purpose of preventing voters from voting.”
Despite a lawsuit from Huntington Beach resident Mark Bixby aiming to block the measure, a judge ruled that its legality could only be considered if it were to pass and allowed it onto the March ballot.
“Indiana Legislature approves bill adding additional verification steps to voter registration”
“After long legal battle, voter ID arrives in NC. But could it be gone again by 2024?”
After a decade of false starts — and millions of dollars spent fighting over the issue at the ballot box and in the courtroom — North Carolina voters are now required to show photo identification to cast a ballot in person.
The new voter ID requirement is a victory for conservatives. They’ve pushed for stricter voting laws, saying rules like voter ID are needed to improve voters’ faith that elections aren’t being rigged. Such concerns have skyrocketed among Republicans in recent years due to former President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
It’s also a setback for progressives and civil rights activists. They say the law isn’t actually intended to fight voter fraud, which is rare already. Instead, they say, it’s being put in place to make voting harder for poor people, minorities and college students — all of whom tend to support Democrats.
“Five years ago, North Carolinians made it clear that they supported enshrining in our constitution a requirement to show a photo ID to vote,” said Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, a chairman of the state senate’s election law committee. “Since then, far-left activists and their allies in the executive branch have tried everything to stop this commonsense measure from becoming a reality.”
North Carolina’s first attempt at voter ID, in 2013, was ruled unconstitutional — one piece of a broad set of election law changes that federal courts found Republican lawmakers had written to intentionally discriminate against Black voters.
State lawmakers tried again in 2018, as Newton referenced, asking voters to add an ID requirement to the state constitution. Voters agreed, and the voter ID amendment passed in 2018 with 55% support. But it had been held up in court. Then, earlier this year, the North Carolina Supreme Court signed off on voter ID, reversing the court’s own decision from just a few months prior that had found voter ID to be racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.
That judicial flip-flop coincided with the elected Supreme Court’s majority shifting from Democrats to Republicans. It allowed voter ID rules to go into place starting Thursday, when the first city council races of 2023 began….
Although Republicans have now won the main state-level lawsuit against voter ID, there’s still a federal lawsuit moving forward, filed by the NAACP and other civil rights groups. And more could be filed if problems arise now that voter ID is actually being used.
Irving Joyner, a professor at North Carolina Central University’s law school and longtime NAACP attorney, said they’re hoping to see things move faster in their federal lawsuit now that the 2024 elections are imminent. The two sides are currently fighting over what evidence should be allowed at trial, but court records indicate that a ruling should be made soon.
Once that’s settled, the next fight could be over when to hold the trial — a consequential decision. If the NAACP wins and voter ID is ruled unconstitutional yet again, it would matter a great deal whether that ruling comes before or after next November’s presidential election.
“We have sought to provide the judge with a schedule that will get us into trial in the early part of 2024 to give the judge plenty of time to consider the evidence that we are presenting,” Joyner said. “… But you never know. The state is trying to string it along, out until after the 2024 election.”