Voter ID tends to poll well. But that doesn’t mean voters really want it

If you ask people whether they support voter ID, most will say yes — at least, if that’s all you ask them.

In polling, as in all things, context matters. Voter ID laws also make voting harder for millions of citizens, and if you ask Americans if they want that, they tend to say no. 

As Republicans are once again pushing to enact the anti-voting SAVE America Act, claims about voter ID are popping up like mushrooms after a long rain. And like those fungal blooms, you’ll want to keep most of those claims away from your tongue. 

President Donald Trump’s long-sought expansion of federal control over elections would require voters to show photo identification when they cast ballots and documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) when they register. It would also prohibit no-excuse mail voting, prevent transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming care, and ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The bill’s backers tend to point to polls showing broad support for voter ID as proof that supporting the measure is just “common sense.” Whenever pollsters ask whether voters back the idea, around three-quarters say yes. So it makes sense politically for Republicans to conflate support for a bill’s most popular provision with support for the bill itself.  

But the proposal’s stricter DPOC requirements aren’t as popular. 

When PBS News/NPR/Marist asked Americans in April whether they back voter ID, 74% said yes. But when the same pollsters asked about DPOC, support fell to 65% of Americans. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released in April found only 51% of Americans support DPOC registration requirements. Similarly, a Politico poll conducted in April found just 52% support DPOC. That aligns with a Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll from July, which found 54% of voters support DPOC, while 37% oppose.

And support for the SAVE America Act as a whole falls even further when you ask voters about the bill itself. 

Asked whether they support the SAVE America Act, just 37% of Americans told Politico’s pollsters in April that they did. Far more were uncertain (42%) or outright opposed (21%). The UMass Amherst pollsters found that even SAVE Act backers have their doubts about the legislation’s potential impact. 

“A substantial portion of the law’s own supporters express reservations about its potential real-world consequences for denying the vote to eligible citizens, such as people of color, students and older people,” Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, said when the poll was published. “Americans may support the principle of citizenship verification in the abstract while remaining genuinely uncomfortable with who gets caught in the net.”

Americans like people being able to vote

In polling, as in all things, context matters. Voter ID and DPOC provisions will make voting harder for millions of Americans, and if you ask voters if they want that, they tend to say no.

A March PBS News/NPR/Marist poll found 59% of Americans think ensuring voters can cast ballots is paramount, while only 41% say preventing ineligible ballots from being cast is more important. 

The same UMass poll that found 51% of Americans backed DPOC requirements also found that even more wanted to make voting easier: 55% supported no-excuse mail voting (which the SAVE America Act would ban) and 58% backed allowing people to register and vote on Election Day. Another 47% supported automatic voter registration for all eligible voters, and 48% said people should be allowed to register to vote online. 

A recent Pew Research Center survey likewise found that 59% of Americans think anyone should be able to vote early or absentee. Support for no-excuse early and mail voting has remained steady over the years for Democrats and Independents, while plunging for Republicans from 57% in 2018 to just 34% this spring. While 58% of Americans said making it easier to register and vote wouldn’t make elections any less secure, 63% of Republicans said it would. 

The UMass Amherst poll also asked Americans if they supported Trump’s attempts to shift control of elections from the state to Washington, D.C. Only 19% said they supported the measure, while 48% said they opposed — including 41% who were strongly opposed. 

Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, said one reason Americans say voters should show DPOC like a passport or birth certificate is that they “overestimate how many Americans actually have access to this document.” 

Responses to one Politico poll question in particular drive that point home. Politico asked respondents whether they currently had access to various forms of ID like birth certificates (57% said yes) or a valid U.S. passport (30%) with their current legal name. They also asked whether they had access to “A REAL ID that indicates citizenship status,” to which 36% responded yes. 

The problem is, only five states even offer this kind of REAL ID, which can be used in lieu of a passport when re-entering the U.S. from Canada, Mexico or some countries of the Caribbean: Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington. 

The standard-issue REAL IDs don’t indicate citizenship (including the driver’s licenses in states that have enhanced IDs). In fact, many legal noncitizen residents can — and do — get REAL ID-compliant licenses. 

Similarly, Americans overestimate the scope of noncitizen voting. In the July Verasight poll, 44% of respondents said noncitizens vote often in U.S. federal elections, with half saying “very often,” while only 17% said “rarely” and 28% said “almost never” — even though there is no evidence of noncitizens intentionally casting ballots in significant numbers. 

As the SAVE America Act’s opponents note, the millions of voters who lack easy access to a passport or birth certificate could face disenfranchisement if it is enacted.

According to a 2023 survey by the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, roughly 21 million Americans — 9% of voting-age citizens — don’t have a citizenship-proving document like a passport or birth certificate handy. More than 140 million Americans lack a passport and millions of recently married or divorced women don’t have updated identification documents reflecting their recently-changed surnames. 

And the states that have attempted proof-of-citizenship requirements ended up disenfranchising thousands of voters. When Kansas gave it a try in 2013, more than 31,000 residents — 12% of attempted registrants — were unable to register because they could not document their citizenship. For comparison, Kansas officials only uncovered 39 noncitizens who were registered to vote in the decade prior. 

The impacts also fall disproportionately on minorities. While a 2022 analysis by the Movement Advancement Project found that roughly 12% of U.S. adults lack a valid driver’s license — itself insufficient to show citizenship — that figure rose to 21% for Black adults and 23% for Hispanic adults. 

Beyond the blow to legal voting, these laws are expensive, as a Campaign Legal Center report found in 2025, costing taxpayers millions of dollars to administer, to implement registration system upgrades and to remedy errors. 

And it would be a pain even for voters who have all the necessary documents at the ready. A Voter Participation Center analysis found that more than 80% of voters would be unable to update their registration using the same methods they used ahead of the 2024 elections. 

Will SAVE America save Democrats in close races this year?

Republican strategists and sitting GOP senators alike have griped to reporters repeatedly that Trump’s singular obsession with the SAVE America Act is hurting the party’s chances in November. They probably have a point. 

By focusing on this issue ahead of the midterm elections, Trump and the GOP might be helping Democrats. Trump’s approval rating is underwater with voters on most — if not all — issues, including former strengths like immigration, border security and crime. Voters also consistently rank the economy and inflation as their top issues.

However, voters also say they are worried about “elections and democracy.” According to Strength in Numbers/Verasight, 24% of voters list that as a top 3 issue, behind prices and inflation (58%), jobs and the economy (40%) and health care (35%). When asked to name just their most important issue, 14% of voters said elections and democracy. 

The problem for Republicans is that these democracy-and-elections voters are mostly Democrats. When asked which party you trust to handle the issue, 46% said they preferred Democrats in July, compared to 36% who said Republicans.

Similarly, when asked about Trump’s handling of this issue, only 37% said they somewhat or strongly approve, compared to 46% who said they strongly disapprove and another 11% who somewhat disapprove — meaning voters gave the president a -20 approval rating on elections.

There aren’t many voters Trump can sway to his side by focusing on elections. In poll after poll, independent and undecided voters largely say they are focused on other issues and, to the extent they do care, tend to disagree with the GOP’s positions on voting laws.  

In other words, the issue is a loser for Trump. And the numbers haven’t moved much in his favor over the last few months since the SAVE America Act became his singular obsession and, thus, Congressional Republicans’ main topic of debate. 

The Strength in Numbers/Verasight monthly poll in July showed voters preferred Democrats by 10 points on “elections and democracy,” a small drop from a 13-point advantage they had back in April. A decline that small could be attributed to statistical noise as much as any real shift in public opinion, despite the GOP heaping gobs of attention on the issue. 

Finally, as voter profiles have changed in recent years, it’s become less clear whether Republicans would gain electorally from voter suppression efforts like the SAVE America Act. Democratic voters are slightly more likely to have a passport — and Democratic women more likely to keep their names when marrying — than Republicans. 

Passing the bill would incense diehard Democrats, who are already much more eager to vote — and volunteer — in the midterms. And all it might do — in a future election, as it’s getting too late to implement anything before November — is make it harder for more Republicans to vote.