What type of identification voters should be required to produce before voting is one of the most hotly contested issues in the election reform community. The recent call for a universal, mandatory photo ID card by the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform and the passage of a new voter ID law in Georgia have elevated the issue to national prominence. Read the Carter-Baker report, a counter to it by Spencer Overton and the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, potential voter ID compromises, and more.

As the 109th Congress wound down, the debate over a measure requiring a photo ID and proof of citizenship to vote heated up. A recent report addressed the costs of the kinds IDs that would be needed under the bill, while a paper by political scientists from Rutgers examined the effects of such ID requirements on voter turnout.

The general public may be paying attention to voter fraud issues because of their connection with the recent firing of U.S. attorneys, but the EAC has been making news on the integrity front as well. Deciding that no conclusions could be drawn based on an initial report, the Commission has called for further research on the effects of voter identification laws.

While legislative debates over voter ID laws have continued recently in states like Texas and Kansas, new resources provide additional perspectives. A report from Georgia examines specific questions related to driver’s licenses, while Daniel Tokaji provides a wide-angle look at the voter fraud controversy at the Department of Justice.

The media’s focus in its coverage of the Indiana voter ID case may be on the potential effects for the 2008 election, but election reform researchers have looked at the case from a legal perspective. The Election Reform Project and Ned Foley have offered previews, while the Brennan Center has gathered and summarized much of the relevant case material.