21 Percent Of Americans Have No Government Issued ID: 25 Percent Elderly Blacks Have No ID

 

Survey results: photo identification

As many as 11 percent of United States citizens – more than 21 million individuals – do 

not have government-issued photo identification.  Eleven percent of the American 

citizens surveyed responded that they do not have current, unexpired government-issued 

identification with a photograph, such as a driver’s license or military ID.

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  Using 2000 

census calculations of the citizen voting-age population, this translates to more than 21 

million American adult citizens nationwide who do not possess valid government photo ID.   

Elderly citizens are less likely to possess government-issued photo identification.  

Survey results indicate that seniors disproportionately lack photo identification.  Eighteen 

percent of American citizens age 65 and above do not have current government-issued 

photo ID.

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  Using 2005 census estimates, this amounts to more than 6 million senior 

citizens.

Minority citizens are less likely to possess government-issued photo identification.  

According to the survey, African-American citizens also disproportionately lack photo 

identification.  Twenty-five percent of African-American voting-age citizens have no

current government-issued photo ID, compared to eight percent of white voting-age 

citizens.

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  Using 2000 census figures, this amounts to more than 5.5 million adult 

African-American citizens without photo identification.  Our survey also indicated that 

sixteen percent of Hispanic voting-age citizens have no current government-issued photo 

ID, but due to a low sample size, the results did not achieve statistical significance.

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Citizens with comparatively low incomes are less likely to possess photo identification.  

Citizens earning less than $35,000 per year are more than twice as likely to lack current 

government-issued photo identification as those earning more than $35,000.  Indeed, the 

survey indicates that at least 15 percent of voting-age American citizens earning less than 

$35,000 per year do not have a valid government-issued photo ID.

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Photo identification often does not reflect current information.   For many of those who 

possess current, valid government-issued photo ID, the documentation does not reflect their 

current information.  For example, survey results show that ten percent of voting-age 

citizens who have current photo ID do not have photo ID with both their current address 

and their current legal name.  The rate is higher among younger citizens: as many as 18 

percent of citizens aged 18-24 do not have photo ID with current address and name; using 

2004 census tallies, that amounts to almost 4.5 million American citizens.

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The reason minorities are so much harder hit by these seemingly benign laws has its roots in the tragic legacy of race in this country. They still work because that old Black man, born into Jim Crow in 1940, may have had no birth certificate because he was not born in a hospital because of poverty or discrimination. Names may have been misspelled on African-American birth certificates because illiterate midwives sometimes gave erroneous names. MORE