Measurement issues in assessing possession rates of voter identification: Evidence from recent lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin

One of the most significant points of contention in the recent spate of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of voter identification laws is how many eligible voters actually possess a valid ID. Some experts rely on official state government databases and attempt to match names across databases. Others introduce survey results of randomly selected samples of eligible voters to self-report their ID status. Matt Barreto served as lead expert witness in lawsuits challenging voter ID in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and discusses the measurement challenges across different types of datasets and reviews empirical evidence on the possession rates of voter ID for the states as a whole, as well as across demographic subgroups.