A recent survey conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice, in collaboration with VoteRiders, the Center for Civic Democracy and Engagement (CDCE) at the University of Maryland, and Public Wise, has revealed that more than 9% of American citizens of voting age lack readily available proof of citizenship, such as passports, birth certificates, or naturalization papers. The findings suggest that 21.3 million Americans could be denied voting registration if required to show such documents.
The survey's results come amidst growing concerns over Republican efforts to prevent non-citizen voting, which critics argue could lead to the disenfranchisement of millions of eligible voters. Donald Trump and his allies have made the threat of non-citizen voting a major talking point ahead of the November elections, despite evidence showing that such occurrences are already illegal and extremely rare.
The study also highlighted significant racial disparities in the possession of citizenship documents. While just over 8% of white American citizens lack readily available documentation, this figure rises to nearly 11% among Americans of color. Furthermore, at least 3.8 million American citizens do not possess the aforementioned documents at all, citing reasons such as loss, destruction, theft, or storage in locations like a relative's home or a safety deposit box.
"Our estimates are probably conservative measures of impact," the researchers wrote in a blog post announcing their findings. "While it's true that most Americans can access these documents, most of us don't walk around town carrying our passport or birth certificate. If those documents were required for voter registration, most would not have them readily available to take advantage of opportunities they encounter at schools, churches or other community spaces where registration drives register many Americans to vote."
The researchers emphasized the importance of convenience in voter participation, noting that even if a citizen is certain that their documents are stored securely, the additional effort required to retrieve them could deter some voters from registering if such documents were mandatory.
Two states, Kansas and Arizona, have already attempted to implement proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting, offering case studies on the potential impact of such measures. In Kansas, 30,000 people had their voter registration held up between 2013 and 2016 due to the law, while Arizona's proof-of-citizenship requirement for state elections has negatively affected tribal voters and college students.
The survey also found that about 21 million Americans of voting age do not have a non-expired driver's license, with non-white voters less likely to possess one. Lauren Kunis, the executive director of VoteRiders, stated, "Getting an ID can mean needing to track down underlying proof-of-citizenship documents like a birth certificate, navigating bureaucracy and paperwork, or spending hours at an ID-issuing office that is hard to reach. For these reasons and many more, voter ID laws make it more complicated, costly and confusing to cast a ballot in America today."
The study's findings are consistent with a Brennan Center survey conducted nearly two decades ago, which found that 7% of Americans did not have easy access to proof-of-citizenship documents. The researchers emphasized that current protections against non-citizen voting are effective, with ballots cast by non-citizens being "vanishingly rare."
"Requiring proof of citizenship would solve nothing, but it would create major barriers to registration for eligible voters, especially those who already face disproportionate barriers to participation in our democracy," the researchers concluded. "We should be making it easier, not harder, for these citizens to participate."
