The Truth About Voting Laws

For example, in Nebraska, the electorate passed a constitutional amendment in 2022 that requires a photo ID for all elections. Voters will feel the first effects of it this year. (According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states have some form of voter ID law.)

“We wanted to ensure that we’re not inhibiting any older Nebraskans by putting a voter ID initiative in place,” says Jina Ragland, AARP Nebraska associate state director.

“Specifically, one of the biggest things for us was ensuring that older adults who no longer drive or may no longer have a photo ID could use an expired license,” Ragland says. At AARP’s urging, the Nebraska Legislature agreed. “We were also concerned about our assisted-living facility residents and nursing home residents who may not have an ID any longer, and they may not even have their ­expired license,” Ragland says. Also at AARP’s urging, election officials will allow these ­residents to use a record from their long-term care facility as a valid ID.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission considered changes to voting rules—opposed by AARP—that would have allowed election observers to go into nursing home patients’ rooms and watch them fill out their absentee ballot. “This is a matter of privacy,” says ­Martha Cranley, AARP Wisconsin state director. “Your nursing home room is your home. Nobody else has any business coming in there to watch you vote.” The commission agreed not to adopt that regulation.

“There have been multiple legislative proposals, most of which would cause older Wisconsinites to face a harder time in both accessing and submitting their ballot. The governor has so far served as a bulwark against most of these measures, continuously vetoing measures he deems as restrictive to voter access,” Cranley says.

In Michigan, AARP was instrumental in getting the word out to older residents about a 2022 ballot proposal that would have required absentee voters to put personal information such as their driver’s license or Social Security number on their absentee ballot as proof of identification.

“We were really concerned about that ­issue and waged a whole campaign around how this could lead to fraud with people stealing those envelopes,” says Melissa Seifert, AARP Michigan associate state director. AARP waged a “LeaveMIVoteAlone” campaign, with digital billboards and media ads across the state. The ballot proposition failed.

In all the states and territories, AARP offices conduct voter education campaigns, and the organization has created voter guides for each area that provide all the information needed to cast your ballot. 

The pandemic effect

Absentee voting has long been an option for people who could not make it to the polls ­because of illness or out-of-town travel. Leading up to the 2020 election during COVID-19, many states passed laws to help ensure that voters who were afraid that standing in a long line at a polling place would expose them to the virus could still cast their ballots—either by mail or by filling them in at home, then putting them in a drop box or taking them to an election office.

As the pandemic eased, some states maintained their voting law expansions, while others pulled back. Some voting issues ended up in court.

In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that drop boxes, which became a much more common way to cast a ballot during the pandemic, were illegal. A lawsuit challenging that ruling will be heard by the state Supreme Court in May.

Public divided on new laws

There’s a strong partisan division over laws governing voting by mail: Just 28 percent of Republicans said any voter should be allowed to cast their ballot by mail, compared with 84 percent of Democrats, according to a January Pew Research Center survey.

Other voting changes have overwhelming bipartisan support, the Pew poll found. For example, 82 percent expressed support for requiring paper ballot backups for electronic voting machines. A photo ID requirement for voting was supported by 81 percent; 76 percent of respondents favored making early in-person voting available for two weeks before Election Day; and 72 percent supported making Election Day a national holiday.

Though ballot security has gained attention since the 2020 election, many Americans aren’t thrilled with the idea of technology playing more of a role in voting, the Pew survey shows. Technology, says Stanford’s Grimmer, is increasingly used in the operation of our elections: Databases allow people applying for a driver’s license to also be automatically registered to vote, and Americans can register and request an absentee ballot online.

But, Grimmer says, technology in voting is likely to go just so far.

“There’s a lot of reluctance among some experts to make too much of voting electronically,” he says. Does that mean Americans won’t soon be able to open an app on their phone and cast their ballot without ever leaving home?

“I would be extremely surprised if that happens,” Grimmer says. “If that happens in the next 20 years, I’d be shocked.”