HB 3016 will eliminate voter ID options without photographs. The stated purpose of HB 3016 is “to require a photograph on all valid identifying documents used for voter identification purposes” and “to ensure no non-citizen is capable of utilizing a non-citizen driver’s license, permit, or identification card to register to vote.”
The current protections against non-citizen voting are effective: ballots cast by non-citizens are vanishingly rare. Requiring a photo ID to vote would solve nothing, but it would make it harder for eligible voters to cast ballots.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on HB 3016 Wednesday, March 19. By the time you read this, it’s likely the Committee will have sent the bill on to the floor for a vote by the full House of Delegates.
Tell Republicans in the House to stop their attacks on democracy and reject conspiracy-based bills that will make it harder for West Virginians to vote.
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FACT: West Virginia and every other state have numerous safeguards to ensure that only citizens vote in our elections. To even register to vote in state and federal elections, you must swear you’re a citizen under penalty of criminal prosecution. Under federal law, a non-citizen could face up to five years in prison simply for registering to vote. It’s also a deportable offense for non-citizens to register or vote.
FACT: The supposed scourge of non-citizen voting is a non-issue. Flawed studies have fueled false and exaggerated claims about non-citizen voting rates. Yet, every legitimate study on the question shows that voting by non-citizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare.
The Heritage Foundation actively promotes claims about the risk of non-citizens voting and encourages states to enact restrictive voting policies. However, its data shows how rare these instances are. A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s database of election fraud cases found only 77 instances of non-citizens voting in the US between 1999 and 2023. Additionally, the American Immigration Council, which advocates for immigrant rights, also analyzed the Heritage Foundation data and found most non-citizen voting cases involve legal immigrants. Many had been misinformed about their eligibility to vote. That analysis found only 10 cases involving undocumented immigrants since the 1980s.
The one time in modern history that a non-citizen registered and attempted to vote in West Virginia, he was caught, charged, and eventually deported, according to testimony before this body by representatives of the WV Secretary of State’s Office. Of the 35 West Virginia election fraud cases in the Heritage Foundation database (1982-2024), only one mentions registering and voting by a non-citizen.
FACT: Like non-citizens voting, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent. A search of the Heritage Foundation database identified 31 alleged cases of voter impersonation at the polls across the US dating back to the early 1980s. The year with the most cases was 2022, with nine cases in seven states. They add up to a negligible fraction of the 112,030,874 votes cast nationwide in the 2022 General Election.
Additionally, during a hearing on HB 3016 before the House Judiciary Legal Service Subcommittee, a representative of the Secretary of State’s office said they were unaware of any incidents in West Virginia of the type of fraud the voter ID bill would address or of voters forging documents on our current list of voter ID options to vote.
FACT: Overly burdensome ID requirements disproportionally affect seniors, minorities, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students. These requirements create obstacles for eligible voters who lack the necessary documentation for photo IDs, such as a birth certificate. Acquiring a birth certificate can be especially difficult for vulnerable West Virginians — particularly those who no longer drive or who lack access to transportation or the internet.
Compared to the rest of the US, West Virginia has a higher proportion of seniors and people with disabilities. Seniors and people with disabilities are overrepresented in West Virginia compared to the rest of the US. Seniors are one of the most reliable voting blocks in West Virginia elections. The latest US Census data shows that West Virginians 65 and older make up 21.5% of the population. Still, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, they accounted for nearly 40% of the votes cast in the 2022 General Election. According to Census Bureau data, 13.8% of West Virginians under 65 have a disability, compared to 9.1% nationally.
Creating barriers for eligible voters to prevent extremely rare abuse is a policy decision, but it is disingenuous for legislators to pretend that HB 3016 won’t disenfranchise numerous West Virginians by making it harder for them to vote.