Written by Stephen Caruso, Spotlight PA, and Carter Walker, Votebeat
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
For two decades, disputes over voter identification have sunk attempts to rewrite Pennsylvania’s badly outdated election law. But in recent years, prominent Democrats have offered tentative support for stricter rules.
In March, state House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia), a longtime opponent, publicly said she is open to expanding voter ID as long as it doesn’t make it harder for people to vote. That’s a position echoed by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
In theory, Democratic support for a GOP priority should make it easier for Pennsylvania’s divided legislature to reach a deal that brings the state’s Election Code into the 21st century. The reality is much more complicated.
To understand why, it’s important to consider the transactional politics of Harrisburg.
State lawmakers broadly agree Pennsylvania’s election law is flawed and needs updates, from getting rid of archaic requirements for lanterns at polling places, to allowing counties to process and tally mail ballots before Election Day to speed up results.
But election policy is deeply political. Both parties have their own, often conflicting goals, and while voter ID has long been one of the hardest issues for Pennsylvania’s divided government to navigate, it’s not the only tough one — and it’s unlikely to pass on its own.
Pennsylvania currently requires voters to show ID the first time they vote at a new polling place. After that, they are identified by local poll workers, who check their names and signatures against the ones on record in pollbooks. If a voter requests a mail ballot, they must provide their driver’s license ID number or their Social Security number.
For Democrats, the issue boils down to concerns about ballot access. In particular, Black lawmakers, whose communities have historically faced disenfranchisement due to racist election policies, generally agree that changes must be closely vetted to ensure they don’t create new barriers for marginalized groups.
Republicans’ stated priority is security, a position that has been reinforced by mis- and disinformation spread by President Donald Trump after his 2020 election loss. Along with favoring mandatory voter ID, GOP proposals have included tighter rules for mail ballots, such as restrictions on drop boxes and signature verification.
To reach a deal that can win votes in a divided Harrisburg, legislative leaders have to combine policies that everyone can agree on, such as county-friendly adjustments to mail ballot timelines, with ones that only appeal to one of the two major parties.
But this tit for tat often leads to another roadblock in election legislating, said state Rep. Seth Grove (R., York), a former chair of the House committee charged with election oversight.
As the trades pile up and the bill gets bigger and bigger, Grove noted, more and more skeptical lawmakers end up with a reason to vote no, either because they oppose a specific measure or fear unintended consequences.
“The bigger [a deal] is,” Grove told Spotlight PA, “the more it falls on itself.”
Four failures to enact stricter laws
Over the past two decades, supporters have unsuccessfully tried four times to enact a stricter voter ID law in Pennsylvania. These failures hang over the current politics of the issue.
In 2006, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell vetoed a bill that would have required individuals to show a form of ID every time they vote. Rendell said there wasn’t evidence of people trying to vote using a false identity. Plus, such a policy, he said, could lead to longer polling place lines and other side effects that disenfranchise voters.
The same argument came up six years later.
In 2012, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed a law requiring all voters to present photo identification. Then-state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai told fellow Republicans it would “allow Governor [Mitt] Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania” ahead of the year’s presidential election, provoking national Democratic outrage.
Civil rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union sued, arguing the law wasn’t necessary to prevent fraud and would disenfranchise too many people. Vic Walczak, an attorney for the ACLU, told Spotlight PA that its requirements — including that the ID must have an expiration date — meant only a handful of government-issued documents let a person vote. Walczak said the requirements could have disproportionately affected Black voters.
A state judge blocked the law’s implementation, and a separate judge struck down the law as unconstitutional. Corbett didn’t appeal the ruling.
The next time lawmakers raised expanding voter ID was in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 defeat, when he baselessly claimed that widespread voter fraud in swing states like Pennsylvania had caused the loss.
These ideas captivated a vocal portion of the GOP base, and in response, Republican-controlled legislatures across the country passed stricter voting laws.
READ: Pennsylvania Can’t Reject Improperly Dated Ballots, Federal Court Rules
Pennsylvania, which at the time had GOP majorities in the state House and Senate, was no different. But the commonwealth had a Democratic governor, so GOP leaders tried to appeal to both parties’ priorities.
The legislature approved a broad Election Code rewrite. It would have mandated electronic pollbooks, allowed in-person early voting, fixed mail ballot deadlines and counting restrictions that had frustrated county officials, restricted drop boxes, and required in-person voters to show ID every time.
Unlike the 2012 law, the bill authorized a wide variety of IDs, including ones issued by an elder care facility or college. Counties were also given the option to provide scannable voter registration cards.
Grove was the architect of that bill and said at the time that it “was the best deal” Democrats were “gonna get.” But Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed it, citing several reasons but putting the voter ID requirement first.
After that, the GOP pivoted to constitutional amendments, which give voters the final say and cut out the governor.
That push stalled in 2022 when Democrats flipped the state House, meaning Republicans could no longer unilaterally advance amendments.
State House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) and a handful of swing district members of his party offered a way forward in 2023, when they backed adding a GOP-authored voter ID proposal to a bill to change the date of the 2024 primary. The effort was rejected on a bipartisan basis.
Not ‘a lot of trust’
Finding a way forward will require compromise, said Joshua Douglas, a professor of law at the University of Kentucky who helped craft that state’s 2020 voter ID legislation.
The law requires voters to provide one of a wide array of types of photo ID, but also allows voters to instead complete an affidavit and provide a non-photo ID to confirm their identity. He said the deal provided the peace of mind that voter ID advocates were seeking without disenfranchising voters, and importantly, was not struck down through litigation.
“That’s because it really was a true compromise,” he said. “We crafted a bill where no one got everything they wanted, but everyone got enough.”
Whether that will be possible in Pennsylvania remains to be seen.
On the table is a bipartisan proposal that would allow voters to prove who they are with 20 different types of IDs or other documents, including firearms permits, student IDs, utility bills, and residential leases. If a voter can’t provide an ID, they would be able to sign an affidavit affirming their identity and cast a provisional ballot. It has the support of 12 Republicans and two Democrats.
“The Legislature can no longer ignore a growing chorus saying it can do more to secure the votes of every Pennsylvanian,” state Rep. Tom Mehaffie (R., Dauphin), the primary sponsor of the latter, said in a memo to colleagues.
But Grove said he won’t support it, and he doesn’t think it will fly with many members of his caucus. He’s been in this situation before, when he shepherded the veto-bound 2021 proposal to Wolf’s desk. Three Republicans voted against the bill, arguing it wasn’t strict enough.
READ: Pennsylvania’s Century-old Election Code Needs Fixes, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt Says
One of them, state Rep. David Zimmerman (R., Lancaster), said at the time that “there should be an ID or you don’t vote.”
There’s also a distinct lack of trust among Republicans due to Act 77, the 2019 law that allowed anyone to vote by mail. Act 77 had GOP support when it passed, but Trump’s attacks on mail ballots, as well as a litany of court rulings that interpreted parts of the law in ways they didn’t like, have soured Republicans on it.
State Senate Republicans still want to expand voter ID through a constitutional amendment.
In a statement, Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) took the same position his caucus has since 2023: Democrats passing a constitutional amendment to implement voter ID is the starting point for “the discussion of additional election reforms.”
Grove said that enacting ID through such a measure makes sense because the risk of lawsuits would be lower.
Douglas, the University of Kentucky professor, had a different take. He advised lawmakers to include an option that allows voters to cast a ballot if they show a non-photo ID and attest to their identity via affidavit. Allowing student and expired IDs is also important, he said.
“Those three things can help insulate a law from court challenges,” he said.
Voting rights advocates who are wary of expanded voter ID see it as a bargaining chip that should only be passed if it means attaining other policy goals.
Deb Hinchey, the Pennsylvania director of All Voting Is Local, said it makes sense that Democrats are bending somewhat. “We have a divided legislature,” she said. “It would be unrealistic for the Democrats to believe that they’re going to get everything that they want without compromising in any way.”
She added that Democrats still “have to be strong” and demand additional change in exchange for this concession, such as in-person early voting. “That expands access, shortens lines, and makes the voter’s experience easier and makes voting as accessible as possible,” she said.
Ask rank-and-file state House Democrats how they feel about expanding voter ID provisions, and you’ll get a variety of answers but only rarely a yes or no.
State Rep. Jason Dawkins (D., Philadelphia) said that any talk of voter ID should be accompanied by broad discussions on ballot access, including same-day voter registration.
“I don’t see a scenario where I would absolutely say no to the proposal, but I’d like to see the details before we make a decision,” Dawkins said.
Other lawmakers, such as state Rep. David Madsen (D., Dauphin), said civil rights groups will help them determine how to vote. He said he’d seek the input of the NAACP and similar organizations.
“These are key stakeholders that are experts in this space,” Madsen said.
Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org. Stephen Caruso is the Capitol Reporter for Spotlight PA. Contact Stephen at scaruso@spotlightpa.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here. Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters.
