Recently, Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff hosted a campaign rally in Atlanta that required a government-issued photo ID. Ironically, Ossoff opposes Voter ID, calling it “nakedly partisan” and “unworkable”. So here’s the standard: to hear a campaign speech, you must prove who you are. But to participate in our elections, that same requirement is unworkable?
This isn’t about hypocrisy. It’s about what we already know works. We verify identity everywhere it matters because institutions require trust to function.
Last week, I had to wait for someone to verify my ID before I could buy NyQuil at a self-checkout. Ensuring that I was old enough to buy cough medicine is not disenfranchisement. Nevadans, in their gut, get this because they need to show ID to buy beer, board planes, and enter government buildings. Voting just hasn’t caught up yet.
That contradiction matters, especially in Nevada.
In 2024, Nevadans passed Question 7, a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID, by more than 70 percent. The amendment was a common-sense decision by people who live in the real world. If expanded again this year, high school students will be able to use their school district ID to vote. That works when you vote by mail. Prefer your Social Security number? That is accepted too.
It is standard practice for the Nevada Secretary of State to mail a ballot to every active registered voter under AB 321, and under this amendment, that would still remain in place.
Voter ID is popular across party lines. An August 2025 Pew Research Poll found that large majorities of Americans support the idea, including 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats.
In Nevada’s 2023 Legislature tried to address the opposition’s concerns head-on. State Senators Carrie Buck and Jeff Stone sponsored SB 230, which required voter ID but also mandated the DMV provide free identification cards to any registered voter experiencing financial hardship. Question 7 took the issue to the voters, who overwhelmingly approved it.
But voter ID alone doesn’t fix what’s broken. Modern voter-roll maintenance must be the standard going forward.
After the 2024 election, Nevada’s Secretary of State and the Pigpen Project, a Nevada-based voter roll watchdog, canceled over 162,000 voter registrations and marked nearly 38,000 more inactive. Clark County alone removed more than 90,000 names that should no longer have been active. Cleaning up voters’ rolls is just as important as ensuring every vote counts.
When Nevada mails ballots to every registered voter, dirty voter rolls don’t just cost taxpayer money. They create ballots without certainty. It makes sense why Nevada ranks second-worst in the nation for election law strength on the Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard. The fix is hard, but necessary. When people don’t believe the system works, they disengage. Or they participate believing it’s rigged.
Our America believes that voter identification is critical to the integrity and credibility of elections because trust itself is the foundation of democratic participation. Nevada has helped decide presidential elections in the past. It is important to ensure that Nevada gets it right every time.
If Jon Ossoff can require ID for a rally while calling voter ID “disenfranchisement,” the problem is the double standard. Nevada rejected that logic in 2024. We now need to complete the job.
