Research Suggests Trump and His Opponents Are Both Wrong About the Impact of Voter ID Requirements
The weight of the evidence indicates that such laws do not reliably benefit Republicans or hurt Democrats.
During his speech about election security last Thursday, President Donald Trump renewed his pitch for the SAVE America Act, focusing on the bill's requirement that voters present a photo ID when they cast ballots in federal races.
The bill, which is currently stalled in the Senate, would do more than that, and there are serious concerns about whether it could be implemented in time for this November's elections even if it had enough support to pass.
As Trump tells it, "the only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic, that you…can't get elected any other way." Contrary to that gloss, critics of voter ID laws offer plausible objections that do not hinge on a desire to facilitate illegal voting.
Along similar lines, a 2020 study by political scientist John Kuk and two other researchers, based on data from 2012 to 2016, found that "the gap in turnout between more racially diverse and less racially diverse counties grew more in states enacting new strict photo ID laws than it did elsewhere." That same year, sociologist Jennifer Darrah-Okike and two collaborators reported, based on survey data, that voter ID requirements "can reduce the probability of self-reported voting by as much as four percentage points, enough to swing a national election." They said the results indicated that "Latino citizens face disproportionately negative suppressive effects."
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