Student IDs should be welcome at Texas polling places

If Alabama, Florida, Virginia and Wisconsin can make it work, surely Texas can, too.

More than a dozen states with voter ID laws allow people to present a student ID from a college or university to verify their identity at the polls. Not Texas, though. The Lone Star state has one of the most stringent voter ID laws and, perhaps not coincidentally, one of the worst voter turnout rates in the country.

We urge Texas lawmakers to add college student IDs to the list of photo IDs accepted at the polls. Identical measures HB 1950 by Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, and SB 1244 by Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, would do just that.

We have long viewed Texas’ voter ID law as a solution in search of a problem. Statistically speaking, the Brennan Center for Justice’s report The Truth About Voter Fraud found, “it is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”

On the other hand, studies have found voter ID laws discourage turnout of legally eligible voters. A 2014 Government Accountability Office report studying the impact of voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee found they led to a 2 to 3 percentage point drop in voter turnout, with an even greater impact on voters age 18 to 23 and those who had been registered less than a year.

Still, after several rounds of court battles and some Band-Aid fixes by the Legislature, we recognize Texas’ voter ID law is here to stay. Lawmakers have a duty, therefore, to ensure voters from all circumstances can comply.

For people in the 18 to 23 age group who don’t have a driver’s license or a passport, a college ID could be their go-to source of identification. We have similarly argued for requiring counties to have polling places at large public universities, where too many potential voters currently lack access. As we’ve noted, studies show that people are most likely to become regular voters if they start early and stick with it through their 20s.

The continued success of the American experiment, decades from now, relies on making lifelong voters out of the young people of today. Lawmakers should welcome more of them to the polls by accepting college IDs.