Arizona ID Laws May Disenfranchise Thousands of Trans Voters

In a state where recent wins have been decided by double-digit numbers, every vote indeed counts—which is why LGBTQ+ voting rights advocates are raising concerns over Arizona’s strict voter ID laws that were reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court last month. The reason? The law inadvertently makes it harder for transgender people to vote. 

Arizona is home to more than 30,000 transgender adults—24,400 of them are eligible voters. 

But 9,400 of those voters are at risk of not being able to cast a ballot, or face significant hurdles this November because of the state’s voter ID law, according to a report released this week by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, which has tracked voter disenfranchisement of LGBTQ+ people since 2012. 

Arizona’s voter ID law—which was granted enforcement last month from the U.S. Supreme Court after the Republican National Committee sued to reinstate the law—requires a person to provide one form of state identification to vote in local elections. That form of ID must either be a state driver’s license, identification card, or tribal enrollment card. If a voter doesn’t have that identification, they can show two forms of residency, such as a utility bill and vehicle registration. You can find a full list of eligible documents here. 

Voters who cannot provide those documents when casting a ballot in person are allowed to vote with a provisional ballot for local and federal elections, which goes through additional verification. 

According to the Secretary of State’s website, no one will be denied the ability to cast a provisional ballot. 

But there is an added complication for transgender voters in the state: Those who have not gotten their name or gender changed on their official state documents will have to present an ID that no longer resembles them.  

To change someone’s gender on an Arizona ID, residents have to provide the Motor Vehicle Department a letter from a licensed physician saying they are “irrevocably committed” to the transition process. 

The process is a significant departure from the state law for changing birth certificates, which—until recently—required that Arizona-born residents were required to show proof of gender reassignment surgery to change their birth certificate. Only about half of transgender men get top surgery, and just over a quarter of transgender women undergo bottom surgery, according to a 2019 study published by the National Institutes of Health. 

Of Arizona’s transgender population that is eligible to vote, researchers at the Williams Institute found that just under 40% have an ID card that will either force them to vote on a provisional ballot, or face additional hurdles to voting in comparison to their cisgender neighbors. 

For Phoenix resident Nalea Akther, who transitioned in 2020, the process of getting her ID changed to reflect her gender has been something she said she’s ready for, but a process “I’ve never wanted to go down.”

“I have not even, like, attempted to do any of that because I'm still relatively early in my transition,” said Akther, who works in insurance and also is a local influencer on TikTok as @Tranalytics, discussing her experience as a transgender person in Arizona.

Akther is planning on voting in this year’s election in person and said she is registered to vote, but recognizes that she might not have the same issues as other transgender voters because her name stayed the same after her transition.

“It's interesting how these systems find a way to discriminate,” she said. “Sometimes it feels like there is a conscious choice, you know, there's a very active voting game that political parties play when it comes to registering people or excluding people.”

Though there isn’t an Arizona law that requires someone’s photo or gender match the person standing in front of them at a voting location, LGBTQ+ and voting rights advocates are preempting that trans people—especially those who have not gone through the legal process of getting their gender and name changed—might be turned away to vote. 

Thirty-six states have ID laws in place, ranging from requirements that photos on identification cards closely resemble the person voting to more lenient rules that don’t require proof of identity to show up and vote.

Republicans have long claimed voter ID laws help curb illegal voting by migrants who are not eligible to live in the U.S.—despite voter fraud being both rare, and almost exclusively perpetrated by American citizens—but the report this week adds transgender people to the growing list of communities negatively affected by voter ID laws, including elderly and formerly incarcerated citizens who are eligible to vote. As a result of the most strict laws in the U.S., almost a quarter million trans people now will face additional obstacles to legally casting a ballot this November, the Williams Institute report found.

To subvert the problems that might come from day-of and in-person voting, advocates are pushing people to send their ballot in by mail, instead. 

“Ideally, everyone should sign up for a mail-in ballot,” said Bridget Sharpe, state director for Human Rights Campaign-Arizona, which is working on voter enrollment and engagement of the state’s LGBTQ+ community.