4-In-5 Americans Support Voter ID Laws

While lawmakers continue to debate voting laws, the vast majority of voters have made up their minds, as four out of five Americans support both early voting and voter ID laws, and 63 percent support automatic voter registration, a new poll found.

According to the Gallup survey, Democrats are more likely to favor early voting than Republicans, although both overwhelmingly support it. Nearly three in four GOP voters voiced their support for early voting, compared to 85 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Independents.

Though Americans largely support these voting laws, lengthy legislative and legal battles rage on in Congress and in state courts. Some, such as an Ohio federal judge, say that limiting early voting discriminates against black voters. Indeed, African-Americans and lower-income individuals — who tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat — vote early more than any other demographic, making early voting something that nearly always favors the Democratic candidate.

The vast majority of votes also support having a photo ID requirement at polls, though the idea is significantly more popular with Republicans, 95 percent of whom say that they favor the requirement, compared to 63 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Independents.

Republicans who favor these requirements say that they prevent voting fraud, while opponents say that voting fraud is too rare of a phenomenon to worry about.

Though it has lower support than the other two voting measures, automatic voter registration, in which all citizens who submit forms with the Department of Motor Vehicles and some other state agencies would be signed up to vote, is something that the majority of voters said that they would like, with 80 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans in favor of the process. Currently, five states have implemented automatic registration, including Republican majority Virginia.

Many other states, including New Jersey and Illinois, have considered automatic voter registration; however, both states’ Republican governors have vetoed it, notes MSNBC.

Sources: Gallup, MSNBC / Photo credit: Alex Lee/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons