TCB Editorial · original
Voter ID Has 84 Percent Support. It Still Lacks 60 Votes.
Photo ID to vote has the country behind it. The House has passed it. The Senate still stops short of 60.
Election Day is three weeks away, and Congress has not set a national voter ID standard. The failure deserves a careful accounting. Some of what is said about it is true, some is disputed, and some is aimed at the wrong target.
What is settled
Americans want photo ID to vote. Gallup found 84 percent of adults in favor in October 2024, including 98 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of independents and 67 percent of Democrats. Pew Research Center measured 83 percent in August 2025, with 95 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats. Neither poll tested the fine print of a specific bill.
There is also no federal requirement. States set their own rules. The National Conference of State Legislatures counts 36 states that ask for ID at the polls, 24 of them for photo ID. The other 14 states and Washington use different verification methods.
Peer western democracies go for ID. Canada, France, Italy and Britain, which began requiring ID at the polls in 2023, all ask voters to establish who they are. Most pair that with a national ID card. The United States has none, which is a fair argument for building free ID into any bill.
What the record shows
Republicans have tried. The House passed the SAVE Act in April 2025. In February 2026 it passed the SAVE America Act, which adds photo ID to the earlier proof-of-citizenship rule for registration. Democracy Docket counts at least five Senate defeats this year.
Before the August recess, a narrower bill from Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, covering only photo ID drew 52 Republican votes. It needed 60. On Sept. 30, voter ID language attached to a congressional stock-trading ban failed 53-47. Every Republican voted yes and every Democrat voted no.
Republicans hold 53 seats. Even with every one of them aboard, supporters need seven Democrats.
Where blame belongs
Majority Leader John Thune is open to fair criticism. He says he supports the bill, yet he has said repeatedly that his conference lacks the votes to change the 60-vote filibuster rule. Voters can reasonably ask whether a measure described as urgent justified testing that rule.
Four Republicans also deserve scrutiny: Sens. Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell. On June 4 they voted against attaching the SAVE America Act to a budget bill, which failed 48-50. Tillis has offered an alternative that would tie federal money to state voter ID.
That is a record worth challenging. It does not describe a conference in revolt. The photo-ID-only bill drew 52 Republican votes.
What might be claimed, as always
Without certainty, there is a chance that some very tight races can/will/might be decided by people who illegally vote, ballot shenanigans, or, heck yes, dead voters.
Democrats note that noncitizen voting is already illegal. But guess what: not all votes are being checked for their legality! Opponents of the SAVE America Act warn that its proof-of-citizenship rules could keep eligible voters from registering (a joke). Those arguments have to be answered firmly, not dismissed.
The case for ID rests on something much sturdier: confidence. Voters accept a result more readily when they believe the process was verified, whoever wins. When more than 80 percent of Americans ask for a safeguard and Congress cannot deliver it, the doubt that follows is of Congress’s making.
The majority exists. The 60 votes do not. Until that changes, the next Congress inherits the same argument. It is time to (en)act.
Jack MajorEditor in Chief, The Conservative Bugler