VOTEBEAT: Wisconsin voters to decide whether to put photo ID requirement in constitution
By Alexander Shur, January 16, 2025. Experts say the measure wouldn’t change the current law, and it would still leave some room for modifications.
Wisconsin has long had a photo ID requirement for voting on its books — one of the strictest in the nation. This year, voters will decide whether to make it harder to weaken that requirement.
The April 1 ballot contains a proposal that would enshrine the photo ID requirement in the state’s constitution. Republican lawmakers backed the proposed constitutional amendment in an effort to prevent the ID policy, passed in 2011, from being gutted in court.
Approval of the amendment wouldn’t affect the current ID requirement, experts say; rather, it would prevent or at least complicate future efforts to undo it.
The ballot question coming before voters on April 1 will ask whether the Wisconsin Constitution should be amended to “require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law.”
The amendment would state, in part: “No qualified elector may cast a ballot in any election unless the elector presents valid photographic identification that verifies the elector’s identity.”
What’s the history behind photo IDs for voting?
The law that the amendment would enshrine was enacted in 2011 but faced court challenges that limited its implementation for several years. Republican proponents said it would make elections more secure by protecting against voter impersonation, something that research has shown is rare. Opponents of the law filed lawsuits alleging that the policy made it too hard to vote.
