The Pew Research Center released a new, extensive poll on election issues today. This poll shows that Americans still support a requirement that voters show photo voter ID at the polls prior to voting by strong bipartisan margins:
And although about nine-in-ten Republicans (91%) favor requiring a photo ID to vote, a smaller 63% majority of Democrats favor this policy.
Pew provided some interesting details of the voter ID poll results among Democrats:
Democratic support for a photo identification requirement varies by education: Those with postgraduate degrees are the only educational group in which a majority does not back this proposal (instead, this group is roughly divided: 47% favor, 53% oppose).
Among those with a bachelor’s degree, 59% favor this requirement, and about two-thirds of those with some college experience (67%) and a high school diploma or less (69%) say they would favor requiring all voters to show photo identification to vote. . . .
Democrats living in states that already have some type of voter identification requirement are more supportive of requiring voters to show government-issued photo ID to vote than those living in states with no such requirement. . . . There are no significant differences in opinions on this proposal by age among Democrats.
While the mainstream media are happy to repeat that voter ID laws are racist, voter suppression tools of Republicans, they ignore that common-sense voter ID requirements are supported by a bipartisan majority of Americans.
This poll shows that more highly educated Democrats tend to oppose voter ID requirements at a higher rate than lower educated Democrats, when Democrats and liberal activists claim that their opposition to voter ID is based on how it disenfranchises lower educated, generally economically disadvantaged voters. This seems less ironic when one considers how much of Democrats' and liberal activists' opposition to voter ID is politically motivated and about removing election integrity checks, instead of about concern over lower educated, poorer voters possessing the requisite identification to vote. Activists tout vastly inflated statistics that they consistently fail to substantiate over the number of voters lacking ID, while states have gone out of their way to ensure that eligible voters have an ID to vote. A famous example is Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill's offer for his staff to go to the house of anyone lacking an ID to vote and provide them with a free ID.
Normal Americans understand that it is not asking too much for a person who comes to the polls to vote claiming to be someone to be able to verify his or her identity, just as Americans verify identity to do a number of activities in their daily lives.