Supporters of more stringent voter ID requirements argue they will deter voter fraud and instill confidence in the integrity of the electoral process. Opponents argue that voter fraud is extremely rare, so the only effect of such requirements is to raise the barriers to voting in ways that disproportionately affect citizens of low socioeconomic status.
The implementation of strict voter ID requirements in recent years has led to several lawsuits alleging racial discrimination and an increase in scholarly research into the effects of these laws on voter turnout.
This explainer was last updated on June 24, 2026.
Current requirements
Under the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), first-time voters in federal elections in every state must show some form of ID at the polls if they registered by mail (they do not need to show ID if they registered in person). States are allowed to augment identification requirements beyond this “HAVA minimum” for all voters, first-time or not.
States with HAVA-minimum requirements typically require voters to announce their name and address at a check-in table when they vote in person. Many of these states also require the voter to sign in. Falsely claiming to be a registered voter is voter impersonation fraud and is a felony in most states.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has created a useful two-dimensional classification system to describe the types of voter identification requirements for states that go beyond the HAVA minimum. The first dimension is whether the state requires the voter to show an ID with a photograph. The second dimension is whether a voter without proper ID is required to cast a provisional ballot and then take some additional steps after Election Day to have the ballot counted (“strict” states), or whether such a voter can sign an affidavit attesting to his or her identity and cast a regular ballot on Election Day (“non-strict” states).
The following map summarizes voter ID laws as of July 2025. As a general matter, the strictest ID laws are in the South and Great Lakes states; the least strict laws are in the Northeast and the West Coast.
Note that this explainer provides an overall summary of voter ID policy. Individual state voter ID laws are quite detailed and vary widely, so if you are interested in the details of voter ID laws in your state, consult your state’s resources or local election officials.
In general, voter ID laws only apply to those who vote in person (with the exception of first-time voters who register by mail, who under HAVA requirements must include a photocopy of their identification if they vote for the first time by mail). The identification of voters who cast their ballots by mail, whether they use a traditional absentee or vote-by-mail ballot, is typically handled by matching the signature on the outer return envelope with the voter signature election officials have on file.
Legal controversy
Before the 2000 election, there was far less public focus on voter ID laws. Most states had what are now known as HAVA-minimum requirements, although some had non-strict, non-photo ID laws.
Following the controversies surrounding the 2000 presidential election, photo ID requirements were given a boost by two efforts. First, Democratic sponsors of HAVA agreed to stipulations made by their Republican counterparts around ID provisions pertaining to first-time voters in order to secure the legislation’s passage in the Senate. Second, in its 2005 report, the Commission on Federal Election Reform (known as the Carter-Baker Commission) recommended that all states institute photo ID requirements.
In 2005, Indiana was the first state to pass a strict voter photo ID requirement. The law was immediately challenged by the Marion County (Indianapolis) Democratic Central Committee as imposing an undue burden on voting rights under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Both the federal trial court and the circuit court of appeals rejected these claims. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently agreed to hear the case, and in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, ruled that states had a reasonable interest in preventing election fraud and that photo ID laws were not, on their face, unconstitutional.
The 2008 Crawford decision was seen as a green light both to supporters and opponents of stricter ID laws. To supporters, Crawford signaled that “reasonable” ID requirements, motivated by a desire to prevent voter fraud, would likely be found constitutional. To opponents, the Crawford decision laid out a possible path for future challenges. While the Supreme Court ruled that photo ID laws were not unconstitutional on their face, it did signal that if opponents could show specific harms to voters that outweighed states’ interests in curbing fraud, strict voter ID laws might be struck down.
The number of states with some form of voter ID requirement rose significantly between the presidential elections of 2004 and 2008 (see Figure 2). The fastest-growing categories of ID laws involve photo identification, although most states with photo ID requirements still fall into the “non-strict” category.
In 2013, another Supreme Court case spurred passage of strict photo ID laws: Shelby County v. Holder, a case related to the federal pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Prior to Shelby County, states “covered” under Section 5 of the VRA (primarily states with a history of racially discriminatory barriers to participation) were required to have any election-related voting procedure changes pre-cleared by the Justice Department. To be granted pre-clearance, a state covered by Section 5 would have to show that an ID law did not make minority voters worse off in their “effective exercise of the electoral franchise.” Although Section 5 was not a hard stop on the passage of stricter photo ID requirements — Georgia’s strict photo ID law, for example, was precleared by the Department of Justice in 2006 — it made the process more complicated for states that might have otherwise attempted to pass them. In Shelby County, the Court ultimately decided that the coverage formula outlined in Section 4 of the VRA was outdated, effectively gutting the pre-clearance provision. This decision made it easier for states that had previously been subject to pre-clearance to adopt stricter ID laws. Several states, including North Carolina and Texas, moved quickly to enact photo ID laws that were much stricter than those from the previous decade.
Since Shelby County, the Supreme Court has not agreed to hear additional cases relating to voter ID, instead letting rulings from lower courts stand. In 2017, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. This allowed the lower court’s decision to strike down the voter ID requirement enacted by North Carolina in 2013 to stand. The Supreme Court also allowed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to loosen Texas’ 2011 strict voter ID law to stand by declining to hear the case Veasey v. Abbott.
State supreme courts have weighed in more actively on voter ID. The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a stricter voter ID law (Holmes v. Moore) in 2023, while the Montana Supreme Court upheld a decision in 2024 that struck down a state law limiting acceptable voter ID (Montana Democratic Party v. Jacobsen).
More legislative changes to voter ID law and election administration resulted from the 2020 presidential election, in which many Americans opted to vote by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The election spurred an expansion of vote by mail eligibility throughout the country; subsequently, this expansion also fed concerns about potential increases in voter fraud because of the increase in absentee ballots. As a consequence of the increased skepticism about the security of absentee ballots, several Republican-controlled legislatures have since enacted or increased identification requirements for mail ballots. These new laws did not always focus on photo ID. In 2021, for example, Georgia (SB 202), Florida (SB 90), and Montana (SB 169) all passed bills requiring that voters returning mail ballots supply their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number.
In another trend, states have begun to pass legislation changing the types of acceptable identification voters can provide. Between 2021 and 2025, Missouri (HB 1878), Nebraska (Initiative 432), Ohio (HB 458), New Hampshire (HB 1569), and West Virginia (HB 3016) all enacted legislation requiring photo IDs. All of these states previously required a non-photo ID except for Nebraska, which did not previously have any identification requirements except for the HAVA minimum. Some states have also passed legislation that determines whether student IDs are an acceptable method of identification. Idaho (HB 124) and Indiana (SB 10), for example, have removed it from their list of valid IDs, while Montana (SB 267) has added certain photo student IDs.
Other states have turned to direct democracy, putting voter ID measures on the ballot. Since 2018, voters in Arkansas (Arkansas Issue 2, Voter ID Amendment), North Carolina (North Carolina Voter ID Amendment), Nebraska (Nebraska Initiative 432, Photo Voter Identification Initiative), Michigan (Ballot Proposal 2 of 2022), Nevada (Nevada Question 7, Require Voter Identification Initiative), and Wisconsin (Wisconsin Question 1, Require Voter Photo ID Amendment) have passed ballot measures creating stricter voter ID requirements, such as requiring voters to present a photo ID. Arizona (2022) and Maine (2025) have also had referenda on the ballot requiring stricter voter ID, but these measures did not pass.
At the federal level, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 22) was introduced in January 2025 and passed the House of Representatives on April 10, 2025 by a vote of 220–208, largely along party lines, after which it was received in the Senate but did not advance. The act called for Americans to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections and mandated the removal of noncitizens from voter rolls. In early 2026, House Republicans proposed a new version, the SAVE America Act (H.R. 7296). On February 11, 2026, the House approved an amendment to S. 1383 by a vote of 218–213 that substituted in text mirroring the SAVE America Act. The Senate began procedural consideration in March 2026, though its path to the 60 votes needed remains uncertain as of writing. Both build on an earlier predecessor, H.R. 8281, which passed the House in 2024 but died in the Senate despite attempts to attach it to a government funding measure. While the original bill focused primarily on documentary proof of citizenship at registration, the 2026 SAVE America Act added a requirement to present a specified voter ID to cast a ballot, along with voter roll maintenance provisions.
Research on voter ID
Voter ID has also been the subject of intense scrutiny by scholars. One topic of particular interest has been the disparate impact photo ID laws may have on racial minority groups and turnout. Research on this issue is the topic of ongoing scholarly debate, and whether implementing voter ID requirements leads to a decrease in racial minority turnout is still open to dispute. Some scholars have found a decrease in racial minority turnout nationwide, but other studies have found no effect of voter ID laws on racial minority turnout, and some have even found an increase in youth turnout.
Beyond minority turnout, the effect of voter ID laws on turnout generally is also unclear. Some studies examined this relationship and found no statistical association between strict ID laws and decreased turnout (Ansolabehere, 2009 and Mycoff et al, 2009). However, work by the GAO has shown a negative correlation between strict photo ID laws and turnout. This finding has been supported by other research (Kuk et al, 2020 and Darrah-Okike et al, 2020). Debate continues, since there are methodological challenges to estimating the true causal effects of strict voter identification law, including deficiencies in data quality and sensitivity of results to choices made in statistical estimation (Erikson and Minnite, 2009 and Grimmer et al, 2018).
While it may seem logical that voter ID laws serve to depress turnout (even if descriptively and not causally), some scholars argue that the very presence of voter ID laws can have a counter-mobilizing effect that encourages greater turnout among voting populations that are impacted by those laws.
Another important research issue is whether ID laws are implemented consistently as written. Based on studies involving close observation of poll workers, at least two articles (Cobb et al, 2012 and Atkeson et al, 2010) suggest that inconsistent implementation may be common.
One other aspect of voter ID laws is their effect on the confidence of voters. Research into this question has been partially inspired by the Supreme Court’s argument in Marion County that a rational justification for a state passing a strict ID law is to instill greater confidence in the electoral process. However, the research conducted on this question (Stewart III et al, 2016) has not found a consistent correlation between the presence of strict ID laws in a state and an increase in voter confidence (or a decrease in the belief that fraud is rampant).
Scholars have also studied the factors that lead states to adopt strict ID requirements. Strict ID laws are fairly popular among all elements of the mass public, including Democrats, minority groups, and liberals. Still, when surveyed, those identifying as Republican, conservative, or white are more likely to approve of these laws. What prompts a state legislature to adopt a strict photo ID law appears to be a confluence of three factors:
- a Republican takeover of the state government after years of Democratic control,
- being a “battleground state” (i.e., a state hotly contested by the political parties), and
- being racially heterogeneous.
While these factors are not present in all states that have adopted strict photo ID laws, they are common to most.