Bill that would allow state to issue fee free ID card passes Senate committee

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — A bill that would allow the Department of Transportation to issue a free state ID card to vote for people who can't afford one passed a Senate State Affairs committee Thursday morning. House Bill 340 comes as the governor recently signed a bill removing student IDs as a valid form of identification at the polls.

The bill also standardizes the voter registration process, and specifies the acceptable documentation needed to prove your identity and residence - both for registration and for voting.

Secretary of State Phil McGrane says this was a key piece of legislation for his office coming into this session.

"You may recall when we had the conversation with student IDs, I kind of had a caveat in terms of my support and that was, it had a former bill number at that time but that was this legislation. I think that this is important, particularly for poll workers and just the registration process in general. As you may recall, we have actually two identification requirements. We have the ID requirement to vote and we have the ID requirements to register to vote and currently they are quite different from one another. One is very specific, one is very broad. What this legislation does is unify those," McGrane told the committee.

According to the bill's fiscal note, 98.8 percent of voters in the 2022 general election used a driver's license to vote, 0.4 percent of voters used an affidavit attesting to their identity at the polls, while 104 people used a student ID.

The bill sponsors anticipate that the state will issue fewer than 2,000 no-fee IDs each year.

The bill now heads to the full Senate with a do-pass recommendation. That's the last stop before it can reach the governor's desk.

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