Who Has Proof of Citizenship?

The University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement recently released a report detailing which voters possess physical documents needed to prove citizenship and identify while registering to vote. Survey research from Georgia and Texas confirms the following:

• About 7% of Texans and 10% of Georgians who are U.S. citizens and of voting age would have difficulty showing documentation proving their citizenship.¹
• Democrats are more likely to have documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) documents than Republicans and Independents.
  • In Texas, twice as many Republicans don’t have accessible DPOC as Democrats (8% of Republicans versus 4% of Democrats).
  • In Georgia, Democrats and Republicans are equally likely to lack accessible DPOC (8%), but
    Independents are twice as likely to lack accessible DPOC (16%).
• Black and white voters have nearly identical rates of DPOC access (10% in Georgia and 5% in Texas), but Hispanic voters are less likely to have accessible DPOC (16% of Hispanic Georgians and 8% of Hispanic Texans).
• Younger voters are disproportionately affected. Young Texans aged 18-29 are three times more likely to have trouble accessing their DPOC than older Texans (13% versus 5%). Georgians aged 18-29 are twice as likely to lack DPOC than those 30 or older (16% versus 8%).
• Lower-income voters are disproportionately affected by documentation requirements generally. Across both states, voters making less than $50,000 per year are less likely to possess identity documents than their higher-income peers. Voters making less than $30,000 per year are even less likely to have required documents.

^{1 In both studies, survey respondents are classified as lacking access to DPOC if they either (1) report not having any of the required documentation at all, or (2) report that they possess applicable documents but cannot easily access them.}