| Tuesday, August 18, 2026 |
| Advocates worry new bans on student IDs will trip up younger voters | |
 | To vote in the 2024 election, Lia Symer remembers checking in at her polling place with her student ID card. "I tend to not carry my driver's license on my person when I'm walking around campus. Most students just carry their student IDs to get into buildings," says Symer, who's about to start her senior year at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire -- one of about three dozen states with in-person voter ID laws. But to cast a ballot this year, Symer is going to need to show a state ID, U.S. passport or another accepted identification now that New Hampshire has become the latest of several states to ban registered voters from using a student ID to verify their identity at the polls. Weeks before New Hampshire's student ID ban began in June, a federal appeals court put a similar Indiana law back into effect in April. And earlier that same month, Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into a law an upcoming ban on accepting student IDs when checking in voters at the polls. Florida's restriction is set to start in 2027. Those state laws come amid President Trump's so-far failed push for a Republican plan to overhaul voting in federal elections in every state, including a proposal that would not allow in-person voters to use student IDs. |
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