Statehouses Pick Up Where Washington Stalled
President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass a proof-of-citizenship voting law, signed an executive order aimed at a national voter ID rule and tried to tighten mail voting through changes at the Postal Service. All three efforts fell short in time for this year’s midterms. In Republican-run state capitols, the story is different: more than three dozen new voting laws are being felt at the polls for the first time this election year, many carrying pieces of the president’s stalled agenda, according to an Associated Press report published October 12.
Voters are meeting the changes as early voting opens. New Hampshire students can no longer vote with student IDs. Utah residents returning mail ballots must add more information to the envelope. Some Mississippi voters may have to produce birth certificates or passports to verify who they are.
The Fights Over ID
New Hampshire state Rep. Donald McFarlane, who sponsored the student-ID ban, said colleges lack the controls government agencies use when issuing cards. “The change removes a special exception and applies the same government-issued ID standard to all voters,” he said, noting his bill drew bipartisan support and that students can obtain state IDs at no charge.
In South Dakota, the ACLU has sued over a law requiring first-time registrants to present driver’s licenses, Tribal IDs or non-driver state IDs in person. Kathryn Johnson, who heads the South Dakota League of Women Voters, said the mandate burdens a sprawling rural state: “We’re kind of a remote state, so sometimes it takes a drive, and you have to coordinate, you have to take off work, and all of these kinds of things,” she said.
Ohio’s Roll Purge
Ohio is enforcing a proof-of-citizenship requirement for the first time for anyone registering or updating a registration at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles office, and it scrapped a four-day window that had let late-arriving mail ballots still count, so they must now arrive by Election Day. Voting rights groups are most alarmed by an ongoing scrub of the rolls, since the databases used to check citizenship can be outdated, said ACLU of Ohio legal director Freda Levenson: “Vast numbers of perfectly eligible voters are vulnerable to being disenfranchised,” she said.
Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, a lead sponsor, defended the law: “In the past two years, hundreds of noncitizens have been removed from Ohio’s voter rolls,” she said by email. “Every single vote cast by a noncitizen disenfranchises a lawful Ohio voter.”
The Wider Pattern
The Brennan Center for Justice has counted nearly 40 laws across 21 states taking effect this season that add friction to registering, staying on the rolls or casting a ballot. Noncitizen voting remains rare: the Justice Department recently announced roughly 90 election-misconduct cases, about 50 involving alleged noncitizen voters, against 227 million registered voters in 2024.
“What I want voters to take away from this is that elections are still run by the states and there are still people in many states who are trying to make it harder for you to vote,” said Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center. “But that’s all the more reason to go make a plan to vote and participate.”
Sources
- Many GOP states have imposed new voting rules this year, some mirroring Trump's midterm proposals | The Associated Press
- States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies, Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote – Ms. Magazine
