Ohio legislators approve photo IDs for mail-in voting

Ohio legislators last week sent a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk that would require all Ohioans voting by mail to include a physical copy of their photo ID. The bill, which would take effect in fall 2027, was controversial enough that an original co-sponsor withdrew her support after the photo ID portion was added in an 11th-hour amendment. Democratic state Rep. Christine Cockley decried the change from the measure’s original focus on providing identifying documents to homeless individuals.

“The original HB 472 was a commonsense policy which recognized that IDs and birth certificates are critical for Ohioans to participate in the workforce, secure stable housing, and access medical care,” Cockley said in a statement last Friday. “The change was made without the knowledge or consent of myself or the bill’s joint sponsor [Republican] Rep. Jodi Salvo.” (WORLD reached out to Salvo for comment but did not hear back.)

The Buckeye State already requires photo ID for in-person voting. Last week’s bill would apply that requirement to mail-in ballots. Supporters argue the photo ID requirement would help prevent fraud, while critics say it may enable voter suppression.

Ohio’s bill comes amid a nationwide focus on election transparency and voter fraud just months before the November midterm elections. While Republicans have pushed for state-level election integrity measures in recent years, President Donald Trump is pressuring lawmakers in Washington to pass a voter ID requirement on the federal level. Meanwhile, advocates and critics continue to debate the merits of such measures.

Early Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump doubled down on his insistence that Congress pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would eliminate most mail-in ballots and require all voters to provide valid IDs and proof of citizenship. Trump said that without the SAVE America Act attached, he would not reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, key American spy power legislation that has already hit significant roadblocks.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., supports the SAVE America Act but has expressed concerns over opposition in Congress. “Anyone who follows this process closely knows that we do not have the votes,” he told reporters last week. “The SAVE America Act didn’t even get 50 votes last week on the floor of the Senate. … It’s not something we’re going to be able to get done absent of having an election and electing some more Republicans.”

Despite Congress’ slim Republican majority, strong Democratic opposition paired with rebellion among GOP ranks means that voting requirements are still in the hands of the states.

Ohio state senators also recently passed a measure, Senate Joint Resolution 10, that would enshrine their in-person photo ID law in the Ohio Constitution if passed by voters in November. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, praised the amendment in a press release, and said the same standard should be held for absentee voting.

“Election integrity doesn’t stop at the mailbox,” wrote Cuccinelli.

An August 2025 Pew Research Center study found that 83% of Americans support requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification. Also last year, a University of Maryland survey found that over 21.3 million eligible voters across the country do not possess or have easy access to documentary proof of citizenship. The Bipartisan Policy Center found that roughly the same proportion of Democrats and Republicans lack common forms of documentary proof.

Including Ohio, 19 mostly conservative states passed laws concerning absentee voting after the 2020 election. One of the states, North Carolina, still had the second largest volume of election fraud cases, according to a 2025 Heritage Foundation survey.

“My position has been all along that the people who have their hair on fire about voter fraud are overstating the problem, and the people who have their hair on fire about photo ID suppressing the vote are overstating the problem,” said Mitchell Brown, a professor of political science at Auburn University in Alabama. “I think that the parties are using both of these issues, and they have been for a really long time now, as tools to whip up their base, and it’s just not as big a problem as they make it out to be.”

In Alabama, where Brown lives, mail-in voting already requires a copy of a physical ID. But, referring to her research of other states’ election processes, she said voters could feel the change but that reasonable people may disagree on whether it will be overly burdensome.

“Not everybody has a printer or easy access to a printer, and not everybody has a cell phone to take a picture of their ID,” said Brown. “I think what you’ll see is more people casting ballots that are not eligible to be counted.”

Brown said states could fix the issue of ineligible ballots by allowing curing, where election officials notify voters and give them the chance to provide a copy of photo ID. Ohio law states that a voter in this type of scenario has four days after the election to come to the board office to cure their ballot.

Brown said the more interesting question is whether affidavits, the formerly central requirement for a mailed ballot, are losing their meaning.

“By passing a law, saying, you need this other proof of ID, we’re saying that signing an affidavit isn’t enough,” she said. “We use affidavits for all kinds of things. Are we going to do different processes for those other things we use affidavits for as well?”

Theodore Allen, an engineering professor at Ohio State University, has participated in projects with boards of elections on absentee ballot verification.

Allen said he realized the absentee voting process was “bizarrely complicated” during a study of election boards he performed alongside students in Franklin County, Ohio.

“Anything that adds friction to absentee voting shifts some voters back to in-person voting,” said Allen, adding that the requirement could increase processing times and inconsistencies in mail-in voting decisions.

Allen said the additional processing might only add around half a minute per ballot for election officials, but he echoed Brown’s argument that it would affect voters more. “I think it’s very important to try to make it easier to register to vote,” said Allen.

On Tuesday, the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition called on Gov. DeWine to veto the state measure on mail-in voter ID. “The legislation would make it harder for many Ohioans to vote by mail and would introduce new identity theft and privacy concerns for voters,” the group argued. “The bill would also force local elections officials to purchase, implement, and manage complex new systems and educate voters on major election law changes with no new dedicated state funding.”

In a statement to WORLD, the coalition accused DeWine of not keeping his word by signing legislation in 2025 to shorten the mail-in ballot timeframe, pointing to his comments in 2023 saying that he didn’t expect any more voting law changes during his governorship.

DeWine has yet to approve the current mail-in voting bill, but Ben Kindel, press secretary for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, told WORLD that preparations are underway.

“We appreciate the General Assembly’s commitment to election integrity, and we’ve already begun assessing the technical requirements of this new law, especially as it relates to the construction of a secure digital portal for absentee ballot applications,” Kindel said in a statement to WORLD. “As always, we’ll ensure that Ohio remains the national gold standard of election administration.”