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.)…