Is a noble purpose that prevents even worse outcomes ever enough to warrant bad public policy?
That may be the devil’s choice facing opponents of Republican efforts to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements on all voters. President Trump and his allies, facing declining public support over key issues like the economy and immigration policies, seem prepared to make election integrity a centerpiece of their midterm campaign strategy. Evidence suggests Trump is using election fraud to fraudulently keep the GOP in power.
Minnesota has earned a record under both Democratic and Republican administrations for fair elections and high voter participation. There is no evidence of significant voter fraud in local or state elections. Yet, that’s not enough, even for the state’s Republican congressional delegation. They have joined in sponsoring legislation that withholds federal funds, including money to enhance the security of elections, if Minnesota does not turn over confidential, identifying personal data – including birthdates, addresses and partial Social Security numbers – to the Trump team.
The demand for voting records seems to be a clear violation of federal law, a position Minnesota and more than 30 other states are arguing in courts. The records request also comes with a large dose of irony. The most worrisome threat to election integrity is from the very cyber attacks the threatened federal funds are intended to prevent. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report, directed in part by then-Sen. Marco Rubio, determined that Russia tried to invade the election infrastructure in every state in the 2016 presidential election. Although the committee found no evidence that Russia succeeded in any state, the red flags did cause Congress to pass significant new funding to help states enhance their protection against cyber attacks. Republicans now want to cut off those funds for states like Minnesota that choose to protect the privacy of individual information.
It is shouting into the wind to rehash the dozens of court cases, forensic audits, recounts and investigations following the 2020 election that all underscored the integrity of the vote. And there is this: The three attorneys that Trump charged with leading his legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election – Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell – all have admitted in court documents that they lied about their claims of fraud. Powell defended her lies by saying that “no reasonable person” would believe them.
Yet, here we are with many people willing to ignore facts and believe the liars who told courts they are lying. The believers in fraud are declaring themselves to be anything but reasonable people.
Still, politics and policy aren’t always matters of reason and facts. When the President of the U.S. shouts fraud loudly and repeatedly – when he uses the National Prayer Breakfast to ask how people of faith could vote for Democrats who oppose his voter citizenship requirement – even those who really are reasonable people start to question the integrity of elections.
That is America today. Support for election safeguards is strong among Democrats as well as Republicans. In 2025, Wisconsin elected liberal Susan Crawford to the bench by a landslide
10-point margin. The same voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring identification to vote by an even larger margin.
The outcome likely would be the same in Minnesota and other states if the public could weigh in on whether valid identification should be required of all voters. That almost certainly is the case even though there is no evidence of widespread instances in which voters have misrepresented themselves to vast a fraudulent ballot.
Confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections has fallen from 72% in 2004, according to Gallup, to 57% in 2024. While there have been some peaks and valleys – usually reflecting partisan agreement or disagreement with the outcome of an election – the long-term trend is a decline in public trust.
Trump, without a shred of evidence, is claiming massive voting by non-citizens and proposing a requirement that all voters prove U.S. citizenship. He is setting the stage to interfere in local elections come November and calling for election law to be nationalized in direct violation of the Constitution. Mostly, he seems intent on denying the vote to many immigrants who are naturalized citizens and entitled to vote.
Should those who actually support democracy and the right to vote go down fighting every proposal or is there a path forward that acknowledges the importance of public confidence in the integrity of elections?
Trump wants a high bar. He is demanding that voters prove they are U.S. citizens, a difficult task for many. About half of all adult Americans do not have a valid passport. Birth certificates may qualify as proof, but Trump is challenging the citizenship of some born in the U.S.
It may be time for Democrats to wage their own campaign on election integrity. Accept a less onerous version of voter ID – a driver’s license, military ID, state-issued identification or a similar document – and set the implementation date for 2028, giving individuals and states time to adapt. In addition, use Rubio and other Republicans who supported the Senate Intelligence Committee report as foils to press for more funds to insulate the states’ election infrastructure from cyber attacks by Russia, China, Iran or other adversaries.
Yes, voter ID is a blunt tool that makes it more difficult to vote and likely disenfranchises some people. Georgia has one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country, yet it is the Peach State that is the focus of current Trump attacks on the validity of 2020 voters.
But, as Wisconsin voters said in no uncertain terms last year, the public sees the requirement for identification as a useful enhancement of election integrity. Promoting the confidence of voters in elections is essential to democracy. It has to be done without disenfranchising voters, but assurances that Americans can trust that their votes matter and the outcomes of elections is critical to our country’s future.
Voter ID on its own is poor public policy. But if voter ID is accompanied by funds for states to make identification free and easily available, more money is invested to safeguard against cyber attacks and the more onerous requirements of proving citizenship are avoided, the negatives of voter ID may be necessary trade-offs.
Those of us eligible to vote have one and only one vote each. To have it canceled by someone that has lost the privilege to vote or never earned that privilege is unacceptable.