Volume 11, Issue 1 (2016) Home is Where the Vote Is: A Research Note on the Effects of Changes in North Dakota Voter Identification Laws on College Student Turnout in the 2014 Elections

Since 2005, state legislatures across the nation have passed a series of stringent voter identification laws in the expressed hope of preventing voter fraud. However, some scholars argue that these voter id laws negatively impact people who are less likely to have a photo id, such as racial minorities and young people. This study uses a survey of college students in the North Dakota University System to examine whether changes to North Dakota voter id laws in 2013 had any influence over the ability of these students to successfully cast a vote in the 2014 midterm elections. It finds that the new law did indeed have an impact, with the survey results indicating that several hundred students were unable to vote due to issues related to voter id.