WISCONSIN: Democrats are Out of Touch with Their Own Base on Voter ID
Opposing photo ID to vote has become a dogma—with Democrats that their own voters reject, raising questions about their motives.
In overwhelming support for election security measures, Wisconsin voters in April 2025 approved a ballot measure embedding a photo identification requirement for voting into their state constitution with nearly 63 percent support. This affirms a growing, bipartisan consensus among the electorate that verifying identity at the polls is essential for maintaining trust in elections. Yet Wisconsin Democrats remain stubborn in their opposition to requiring photo ID at the polls, revealing a massive disconnect between them and their own voters.
The results of the Wisconsin voter ID law referendum came as no surprise. Requiring photo ID to vote is a simple, widely popular safeguard for election integrity that prevents fraud like impersonation and double voting.
Wisconsin polls leading up to the referendum showed the measure would pass easily, mirroring national polls that consistently show roughly 80 percent of Americans—including over 60 percent of Democrats—support the measure. An August 2025 Pew Research Center survey of over 3,500 adults found a whopping 83 percent of Americans favor requiring it, including more than seven in 10 Democrats.
The demographic breakdown of this support should shock liberals who believe the Democratic Party’s racial propaganda. Democrats have long argued that a photo ID requirement disproportionately burdens minorities. However, in both public polls and practice, the evidence doesn't exist to back up this argument.
A 2024 Gallup poll found 77 percent of non-whites support the photo ID requirement. Just last month, CNN data analyst Harry Enten noted that 76 percent of black Americans favor photo ID requirements, challenging the assumption that blacks struggle more with obtaining identification—an assumption undoubtedly held by many CNN viewers.
In Georgia, black voter turnout actually rose after photo ID laws were enacted.
Democrats Refuse to Let this 80/20 Issue Go
Nevertheless, Democrats refuse to let something as pesky as public opinion or minority voter turnout get in the way of their white savior complex. Despite overwhelming public approval in Wisconsin for voter ID, several high-profile Wisconsin Democrats oppose this commonsense election integrity measure.
Take Mandela Barnes. Barnes, a former Wisconsin lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate candidate now running for Wisconsin governor in 2026, called for the repeal of Wisconsin's voter ID law in a 2016 op-ed, framing it as a modern civil rights violation responsible for systemic disenfranchisement.
Similarly, another would-be Wisconsin governor, State Representative Francesca Hong, voted against the joint resolution for the 2025 constitutional amendment on voter ID.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley—also running for governor—compared it directly with Jim Crow-era literacy tests.
And State Senator Kelda Roys, one of the most radical Democrats running for Wisconsin governor this year, echoed these concerns during a January 2025 Senate session, framing the proposed amendment as "dangerous to our state." Her argument focused on the falsehood that requiring photo ID to vote harms marginalized groups. Yet as polling shows, those marginalized groups don’t see it that way.
So, why won’t Wisconsin Democrats just let voter ID go? After all, if a party is on the losing side of an 80/20 issue, it usually accepts reality or avoids mentioning it.
Maintaining ideological purity to appease special interest groups is likely the simplest explanation. But making it easier to flood the polls with warm bodies on Election Day, regardless of voting eligibility may offer a more nefarious, yet realistic explanation.
Lax voter ID is the surest way to collect votes from residents who may not be eligible to vote—or may not even legally reside in the U.S. Wisconsin already has the unsound policy of same-day voter registration. Coupling it with no photo ID requirement at the polls—as seven states currently do—is asking for illegal votes or outright fraud.
The pattern of opposition from Wisconsin Democrats illustrates a broader issue, an adherence to ideological purity that ignores voter preferences—or worse, blatant advocacy or for fraud facilitation. With at least two-thirds of Democrats nationwide backing photo ID requirements to vote, and Wisconsin's own electorate embedding it in its constitution, the state’s leading Democrats are at odds with their voter base.
MORE ELECTION INTEGRITY NEWS:
EXCLUSIVE: How the Voter Reference Foundation Provides Election Transparency
NEWS: DOJ Suing Arizona for Hiding Voter Data
WISCONSIN: Mandela Barnes: Yet Another Democrat Ignoring Voters' Demand for Voter ID
VIRGINIA: Judge Blocks Democrats' Gerrymandering Power Grab—Here's What Happens Next.
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