As the U.S. Senate considers legislation that would revamp America’s election laws, voters still overwhelmingly support laws requiring that voters show identification before casting a ballot.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% are opposed to such a requirement. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Thirty-six states have enacted some form of voter ID law, but those laws would be nullified if the Senate approves H.R. 1, which passed the House on a party-line vote. Critics say H.R. 1 “would force states to allow anyone to vote who simply signs a form saying that they are who they claim they are.”
Support for voter ID laws has actually increased since 2018, when 67% said voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote.
Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans support voter ID requirements, as do 60% of Democrats and 77% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
The survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on March 14-15, 2021 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Democrats have claimed that voter ID laws discriminate against black voters and other minorities, but voters reject that claim by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. Sixty percent (60%) say laws requiring photo identification at the polls don’t discriminate, while 31% say voter ID laws do discriminate. Ten percent said they are not sure.
A majority of Democrats (51%) say voter ID laws are discriminatory, while 79% of Republicans and 67% of unaffiliated voters say requiring identification at the polls is not discriminatory.
Majorities of whites (74%), blacks (69%) and other minorities (82%) say voters should be required to show photo identification before being allowed to vote. Voters under 40 support voter ID laws more than do older voters.
Voters who strongly approve of Joe Biden’s job performance as president were most likely to say voter ID laws are discriminatory.
After widespread use of mail-in ballots during last year’s election, 39% of voters said mail-in voting led to unprecedented voter fraud and 47% believed Democrats stole votes or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Biden would win.
Last month, a majority of voters said they believed the 2020 election was decided fairly, but 61% of Republicans said Biden did not win the election fairly.
Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.
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