This report presents results from the first public survey in nearly 20 years focused onwho does and does not have various types of government-issued photo identification.1This report also sheds new light on the barriers faced by voting-age citizens in obtainingsuch identification. Lastly, it explores the public’s knowledge of voter ID laws in theirstates for in-person and mail-in voting against a backdrop of states rapidly adding newor stricter voter ID requirements between 2021 and 2023.
VoteRiders, Public Wise, the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (CDCE) at theUniversity of Maryland, and the Brennan Center for Justice contracted with SSRS, ahighly regarded survey firm, to obtain a nationally representative sample of the U.S.adult citizen population. The sample of 2,386 respondents was drawn from SSRS’sprobability panel and a random sample of known pre-paid cellular phone numbers.Included in the sample are oversamples of 18-24-year-olds, Black respondents, Hispanicrespondents, Black and Hispanic 18-24-year olds, and individuals with income less than$30,000 per year. The survey was fielded 9/12/23 - 10/4/23. All of the results below areweighted. Population count estimates are based on data from the US Census.2 Asummary of the main results follows.Nearly 21 million voting-age U.S. citizens do not have a c