League of Women Voters By: Renee Davidson

Prior to the November elections, media attention began to focus on an often overlooked population impacted by voter suppression measures: women. Voting rights advocates raised grave concerns over new evidence regarding how photo voter ID laws – which are increasingly being rolled out across the country – restrict women’s access to the polls.

This adds women to the long list of populations –including low-income, minority and elderly voters – that are disproportionately affected by voter photo ID laws.

Voter photo ID laws are particularly costly and burdensome for women in part because roughly 90 percent of women change their legal name upon marriage or divorce. According to the Brennan Center, 11 percent of eligible voters do not have a government-issued photo ID, and only 48 percent of voting-age women have a birth certificate that accurately reflects their current name.

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