Photo Identification and Proof of Citizenship Requirements
Photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements are perhaps the most nefarious attack on voting rights since the poll tax. The National Campaign for Fair Elections has been fighting against photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements in states across the country with a combined strategy of policy, legislative advocacy, and litigation.
On April 28, 2008, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s restrictive voter ID law 6-3 in its decision on Crawford v. Marion County Election Board. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued a statement expressing disappointment that the Supreme Court rejected a facial, constitutional challenge to Indiana’s law. However, the Lawyers’ Committee notes that the Supreme Court left the door open for future constitutional challenges to voter identification laws.
Learn more about Photo Identification
Learn more about Proof of Citizenship Requirements
(These issue papers were created by the National Network for Election Reform, the largest national coalition dedicated to improving election administration at the federal, state and local level.)
In The Courts
Crawford v. Marion County Election Board
- Laywers’ Committee’s Amicus Brief
- Supreme Court Decision Upholding Indiana Voter ID Law (on New York Times website)
- Lawyers’ Committee’s Statement in Response to Supreme Court Decision (4/28/2008)
- Media Coverage
- The Court Fumbles on Voting Rights (New York Times editorial, 4/29/08)
- Carded at the Polls (Washington Post editorial, 4/29/08)
- Decision is Likely to Spur Voter ID Laws in More States (Ian Urbina, New York Times article, 4/29/08)
NAACP v. Carnahan
Common Cause v. Billups
ITCA v. Brewer
- Complaint
- Reply brief to motion for Temporary Restraining Order
- Motion for Preliminary Injunction
- Reply brief to motion for Preliminary Injunction
Michigan
Legislation
Georgia Senate Bill 84
Proposition 200, The Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act
H.R. 5913, Voter Integrity Protection Act of 2006
H.R. 4844, Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006
Comprehensive Immigration Act of 2006, McConnell Amendment
Recent News
April 9, 2007: The Kansas House blocked what would have been the nation’s most restrictive voter identification and proof of citizenship requirement by a narrow margin of two votes. The Senate had voted to pass the bill 28-12 in February. The proposal required citizens in Kansas to prove their citizenship with either a birth certificate or passport to register to vote. This bill would have made Kansas the second state to require proof of citizenship.
The bill also contained a provision requiring voters under age 65 to show photo identification to cast a ballot. Present state law requires people voting for the first time in a county must provide identification when they register or before they cast their initial ballot. Seven other states currently request or require photo identification in order to vote. Currently, only Arizona requires proof of citizenship, but many states are considering adding the requirement this year.
Read the bill here.
September 6, 2006: The Lawyers’ Committee, the ACLU, and People For the American Way filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging Missouri’s new law requiring voters to present photo ID at the polls. Missouri is one of several states to recently impose disenfranchising photo ID requirements for voting. Similar lawsuits are also underway in Georgia and Missouri. The suits claim that the laws violate the Constitution and federal voting laws. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the NAACP, Grass Roots Organizing, the Missouri Citizen Education Fund, The Whole Person, Disabled Citizens Alliance for Independence, and Southwest Center for Independent Living, and individual plaintiffs, including Ms. Frencher, who will find themselves disenfranchised by the voter ID law.
One of the plaintiffs, Maria Frencher of Kansas City, does not have a photo ID, and also lacks the information required in order to procure an ID. Despite having been a registered voter for 13 years, and regularly casting legal ballots in Missouri, Maria will be denied the right to vote a standard ballot in the upcoming election if the Missouri statute stands. Maria is just one of an estimated 240,000 registered Missouri voters who lack the proper photo identification now required to vote, according to calculations recently released by Missouri’s Secretary of State. Many of these individuals would face difficult and - in cases like Maria’s - insurmountable obstacles in requiring the ID needed to vote.
Read the complaint here.
August 29, 2006: Florida’s new voter registration law, which severely limited third party voter registration, is declared unconstitutional in a victory for voting rights advocates. We applaud today’s decision by U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz in helping to secure access to democracy for voters in Florida.
Read the decision here.
August 21, 2006: National Campaign for Fair Elections Director Jonah Goldman discusses Florida’s photo ID law, which went in to effect today for the start of early voting.
St. Petersburg Times, Is photo ID law useless action?
August 21, 2006: Missouri’s new photo ID law has come under scrutiny from public officials and the media. Secretary of State Robin Carhanan determined that 240,000 Missourians may lack the proper ID to vote. Even Congressman Ike Skelton has had trouble obtaining an ID. And Missouri’s new ID law is discussed in the context of similar laws across the country.
August 16, 2006: Citizens are being denied their right to vote by Proposition 200, Arizona’s new law requiring proof of citizenship when registering and photo ID when voting. The Maricopa County Recorder’s office (which includes the city of Phoenix) stated that one out of every six new registration forms has been rejected because the applicant did not provide proper proof of citizenship. A spokeswoman for the county recorder’s office noted that most of the applicants were pobably legal citizens.
East Valley Tribune, ID law blocking legal Maricopa County votes
August 13, 2006: Congress’ photo ID road show went to Arizona recently and heard about the real people being denied the right to vote by these burdensome requirements. Eva Steele, a declarant in the National Campaign’s recent lawsuit opposing the Arizona photo ID law and the mother of an Army reservist currently serving in Iraq, lives in an assisted-living facility in Arizona due to a physical disability. Under Arizona’s new law, Eva would not be able to present proper identification and would therefore be denied the right to vote.
Read Eva’s testimony.
The Arizona Republic, A soldier’s mother is denied her right to vote and to speak
August 10, 2006: An editorial in The New York Times discusses Missouri’s new photo ID law requiring voters to present government-issued identification at the polls.
The New York Times, Voter Suppression in Missouri
August 1, 2006: The United States House of Representatives Committee on House Administration will be holding Field Hearings in Arizona and New Mexico to explore a national requirement for proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo identification when voting. National voting rights organizations and a diverse group of Arizona advocates urged the Committee to fully consider the disenfranchising effects of such legislation. Rather than restricting the right to vote for eligible citizens based on exceedingly rare occurrences of ineligible voters casting a ballot, Congress should focus its attention on safeguarding the opportunity of all eligible Americans to meaningfully participate in the political process.
Read our letter to the House Administration Committee here.
July 20, 2006: Michigan’s photo ID law was originally passed in 1996 but was never enforced, since the Attorney General of Michigan at that time concluded that the legislation was unconstitutional. The legislature then passed the bill again in 2005 and asked the Michigan Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the new law. The Lawyers’ Committee and AARP filed an amicus brief in the Michigan State Supreme Court on July 20, 2006, asking the court to find Michigan’s photo ID law in violation of the state Constitution as well as the United States Constitution. Under this law, voters without ID (totaling over 370,000 voters in Michigan) are subject to challenges at the polls, which are often applied in a arbitrary and sometimes discriminatory manner.
Read our Michigan amicus brief here.
June 21, 2006: The National Campaign urged the United States House of Representatives to reject H.R. 4844, the so-called "Federal Election Integrity Act of 2006" introduced by Representative Henry Hyde (IL). Contrary to its title, Representative Hyde’s bill is undemocratic, unfair, and unconstitutional, needlessly requiring proof of citizenship when eligible voters register to vote and photo identification when citizens cast a ballot.
Read our letter to the House Administration Committee on H. R. 4844 here.
Read H.R. 4844 here.
May 24, 2006: A broad coalition of Arizonans filed a lawsuit in United States District Court in Phoenix, AZ to prevent the Secretary of State from violating the basic rights of all eligible citizens to cast a meaningful ballot by implementing provisions of the "Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act" (ATCPA). The diversity of the coalition demonstrates the incredibly broad disenfranchising impact that ATCPA has on Arizona’s electorate.
May 23, 2006: Voting rights and civil rights organizations, as well as organizations representing state and local election officials, dodged a bullet on by preventing enactment of a proposal to require all voters to present photo identification at the polls for all federal elections. Senator Mitch McConnell proposed this amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Act of 2006. The National Campaign, along with diverse allies from around the country, worked to defeat the McConnell amendment to prevent the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans. In addition to the barrage of problems associated with photo ID, the McConnell amendment raises several other major issues. It contradicts implementation deadlines for the REAL ID Act, creating a federal mandate for an identification tool not yet available. And it undermines the continuing efforts of the states to enfranchise every eligible voter through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
Read our letter to the Senate here.
Read the McConnell Amendment here.
September 25, 2005: A consortium of voting rights advocates and private attorneys filed suit today in federal district court in Rome, Georgia, challenging Georgia House Bill 244, charging the law violates the state and federal constitutions, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The measure being challenged, which was signed into law by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue in April of 2005, reduces the various forms of identification that voters can use from 17 to six, and makes government issued photo identification absolutely required in order to vote. The lawsuit was filed against state and local election officials and asks the federal court to declare H.B. 244 "unconstitutional, null and void" and issue both a preliminary and permanent injunction against implementation of the law.
Read more here.