America's Talking - Poll: Majority of Americans favor voter ID requirement, split on mail-in voting ban

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump’s plans to “restore election integrity” and prevent voter fraud include banning mail-in voting and requiring that voters present identification at the polls. The majority of Americans support the voter ID requirement but are divided on a mail-in voting ban, according to a new poll. Trump’s proposal to ban mail-in voting nationally – something he could not do via executive order but may be able to pressure some states to implement – receives support from 47% of Americans nationally, while 48% oppose it. Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxRead more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_3d36ecb7-c5c6-4b30-beda-88b5339e15cf.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAelib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. With the midterm elections a year away to determine who controls both branches of Congress beyond 2026, President Donald Trump says he wants to make sure the elections are fair by requiring voter ID at the polls and ending most mail-in voting opportunities. The Center Square pulled more than 2,500 registered voters on both of those proposals. joining me to discuss the Center Square Voter's voice poll results is Therese Boudreau, the Center Square's congressional reporter. Terrez, how do Americans feel about Trump's proposals based on the results of the polling? Let's why we start with the voter ID requirement. Right. Well, the voter ID requirement is actually largely popular.

So the question asks, do you support or oppose Trump's idea to have voters show, voter ID at the polls before they vote. So you can't just sign your name and, you know, attest that you're some person, whenever you actually have to have approved photo ID and show it at the polls. And so that received across Democrats, Republicans, independents, 71% support. And actually, the majority in all parties, so you have Republican, Democrat, Independent, supported it. Obviously, you know, for Republicans, it was, way more popular. So there's 90-something percent of Republicans support it. And then a lesser extent, but to lesser extent, but still a lot of independent supported it. And then again, Democrats barely support it by a, they support it by a majority, but not, you know, to overwhelming levels. So that, that's definitely the more popular one of his proposals. And you'll see this trend with with both the questions when we get to the other one to where both of these proposals are very popular among certain demographics. So if you were to take a voter and that voter is a white male,

millennial, so, you know, in his like 30s or early 40s, has children under 18, is college educated, and lives in a rural area, those, all of those together, that would make like the ideal candidate for somebody supporting those. So all, you know, voters who are white, who are male, who are in rural areas, college educated, et cetera, they are more likely to support that proposal. It does, you know, we'll see also there's a gender divide. There's a racial divide. there's a demographic area, you know, geographic area divide.

But it is one of the more popular ones. I think that people generally see that as sort of a common sense measure, although there are different bills, for instance, that Republicans have brought to the floor that have not passed the Senate. You know, they pass the House because Republicans have a majority, but then they're filibustered in the Senate because they're more stringent been just you have to bring photo ID to the polls. So this doesn't mean that, you know, if Republicans bring just any bill that includes, you know,

voter ID, that that means that voters, you know, you'd have a bunch of voters support it and be calling their congressman to tell them to tell them to vote for it. But just the general idea of you have to bring some kind of form of identification to the polls is widely popular, is what we're seeing from the poll. Trump says he proposes this voter. ID, but elections are run by the states. So what can Trump do actually in reality when it comes to requiring voter ID? Right. So he can't just, as you said, he can't just sign an executive order, you know, that says that everybody must do this. It would have to be done at a state and sometimes

county or municipal level. So there are, you know, he, if he really wants to pursue this, what he'll probably do is he'll probably, you know, nudge Republican governors to, to, you know, try to implement this, you know, and there's different, again, election laws are different by state, but it would have to be at least at the state level. And then if he really wanted to hardball it, there might be some kind of way that he can maybe offer more government, you know, more federal funding to states who do this or, you know, have some kind of either carrot or stick, essentially. to where he can legally nudge them to do this. This is the same problem, of course, with his proposal to ban mail-in voting, which is a lot.

What did our foreplay about that? It's a lot less popular. Again, most of the support for it is bolstered by Republicans, but even then we're not seeing the 90% support that we saw among Republicans for the voter ID requirements. So the, the, demographically, the support remains similar in that, again, white voters, male voters, you know, those who aren't really young and aren't really old, you know, millennials and and sometimes a little bit older than that, they're the ones who support the most in general. But it, it, it, overall, it only got a, out of all three parties and out of all the voters, it only got a 47 percent. approval rating. So that's less than, that's less than half is not a majority of people who support banning mail in voting. And again, a lot of that too is probably just because it seems less of a

more imminent, it seems less of a way to, you know, ensure election security immediately. You know, if the voter ID, it's like, okay, you can immediately see, you know, oh, this person, it's much more direct. And also, it's easier for people to bring an ID with them to the polls in general, whereas not having access to mail and voting. I mean, there's college students. There's, you know, people who work from home. There's so, there's so, you know, older people. There's so many demographics that mail in voting really helps and is useful for. And that's, you know, whether you're a Republican Democrat or independent.

So it's much less popular. I mean, you have barely any Democrats supporting it. Independence are not in favor of it either as well. You do have more than half of Republicans supporting it, but not by a whole lot. So that's something to where I don't, if Trump tries to nudge governors in that direction, it wouldn't, I don't think the governors, I don't think their populations would really be happy with them. Because it seems like that's something that whether Trump likes it or not is probably just going to stay available as an option. And Trump and many Republicans say that mail-in voting is more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting.

But Teres, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with all of the Center Square voter's voice poll stories at vCentersquare.com.