From the Editors: Voter ID is a popular, commonsense reform — so why are Democrats opposing it?

There is a lot of talk in politics these days around “80-20 issues” — debates where 80 percent of the population is on one side of the issue and only 20 percent oppose them. The participation of biological males in female sports is one such issue — 80 percent oppose this — but another one in the news lately is the question, “should you have to prove your citizenship to register to vote?”

That is the subject of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), which is currently pending in Congress. It passed the House in a nearly party-line vote of 218-213 (one Democrat joined the Republicans) and is now before the Senate, where it faces a tougher fight due to Democratic threats to filibuster it.

It is strange, on the surface, to see that a proposition favored by 83 percent of Americans — including 96 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of independents, and even 66 percent of Democrats — would find near-unanimous opposition from Democratic senators. It is even stranger when one considers that holding American citizenship is already a requirement to vote in our elections. 

The SAVE Act would not restrict the franchise by a single legal vote; it would simply enforce a law that has been on the books forever. Only Americans can vote in American elections — what about that do Senate Democrats have a problem with?

The Act would require proof of citizenship only to register to vote — you wouldn’t need to prove it every time you vote. This seems like common sense. There was a time when no one had to show ID for much of anything. Indeed, photo IDs didn’t even exist. But in the 21st century, you can no longer drink underage because you borrowed your older brother’s draft card, or other similar dodges of bygone days. Identification documents are a fact of life in many ways.

We show ID to board a plane — and the requirements for that have recently been strengthened under the REAL ID Act of 2005, which is finally being implemented in Pennsylvania after many delays. That act also requires ID to enter a federal building, and many private office buildings also require visitors to show ID to enter. Parents can’t even enter their kids’ public school without having their ID scanned into the system. 

And that’s not to mention all of the age-restricted products that require identity verification before you can purchase — alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and marijuana in places where that is sold legally. Renting a car? Driving your own car? You need an ID for that, too. Even accessing welfare benefits requires some form of proving who you are, though not necessarily a government document.

All of which is to say, nearly everyone in modern life has to show ID for many things that are far less important than voting. The Democrats who oppose the SAVE Act seem to think that voting is so important that we need to eliminate any requirement that it’s being done correctly and by eligible voters. But they have it precisely backwards: a right this important must be safeguarded even more than ephemeral pleasures like buying a beer or a pack of smokes.

Voter ID laws are now in place in 36 of the 50 states, and turnout is unaffected by them. We were told that requiring voters to prove their identity was the new Jim Crow, but when states implemented it, turnout did not change across any ethnic or racial group. Most people have the ID already, and others are capable of getting it. Voters aren’t children and they aren’t idiots. There was a time when protests against voter ID could be believed, but we have now seen it enacted across a majority of states and it works just fine.

Millions of Americans doubt the security of our elections, something that was once unimaginable. As Senator Dave McCormick said in a recent speech on the Senate floor, “We have an opportunity, in this Congress, to remove deep vulnerabilities in our elections and restore America’s trust in this core function of our Republic. I can think of few things more important than that.”

All through the 2024 election cycle, Democrats piously proclaimed that “democracy is on the ballot.” But they do more to protect us from a 20-year-old buying a beer than they do from an illegal alien voting for president. Democracy is precious. Our republic is built on it. The vast majority of Americans understand that that’s all the more reason to safeguard it.