Voters’ groups claim voter suppression in lawsuits against Idaho legislation

Two Idaho voters’ rights groups are supporting lawsuits against the state that claim college students’ ability to vote is being restricted. The League of Women Voters in Idaho (LWVID) and BABE VOTE, an organization empowering youth voters, are claiming voter suppression in response to recent laws that eliminated the use of student IDs as valid registration documents. 

LWVID’s national overhead, the League of Women Voters of the US, are the plaintiffs of the case and are challenging Idaho House Bill 124 and House Bill 340, calling them acts of “disenfranchisement.” These bills made it so the only valid forms of documents of which to register include Idaho State IDs, passports or a license to carry concealed weapons. 

Since these laws went into effect in July of 2023, BABE VOTE has been unable to help 20-30% of Idaho students complete their voter registration, according to Sam Sandmire, a volunteer and board member with BABE VOTE. 

LWVID has already filed a lawsuit against the newly appointed House bills in 2023, but at both the district court and Idaho State Supreme Court, they were dismissed without trial. Now, the National League of Women Voters have filed a new suit, with LWVID and BABE VOTE filing an amicus brief in support.  

The repercussions of these laws, as documented by LWVID in a diagram shared with The Argonaut, saw a significant decrease in voter registration and turnout in the 2024 national election. 

Between 2020 and 2024, youth voter registration in Idaho among 18–29-year-olds in the general elections dropped by more than 3%. The registration rates among 18–19-year-olds decreased by almost 23% in that same time frame, according to a press release from BABE Vote and LWVID. 

Betsy McBride, co-president of LWVID, said that this move by Idaho lawmakers to restrict voting rights was one that they had been anticipating in years prior.  

“We knew there would be complications with student IDs, but we could see a trend for the last several years that there was some appetite to begin to restrict voting,” McBride said. “Somewhere there was a group or somebody who decided that students would make a good target to start with.” 

The polling place for the majority of UI students living on campus and close to campus, the Student Recreation Center, saw 5-7 hour wait lines both for both those registering day-of and preregistered voters due to a number of complications. One of those was students being turned away for not having the proper documentation that would’ve once allowed them to vote. 

Fallon Gibbs, a third-year Finance major at UI, was one of many students who registered to vote day-of on Nov. 5. His experience was one that many others described also encountering. 

“I was in line for approximately five hours, and I was unable to even actually vote as I had to leave for work,” Gibbs said. “I did register, but the whole thing felt like a waste of time.” 

For Kendal Shaber, Director of Voter Engagement and Rights with LWVID, the biggest fear is that these effects and trends will continue to worsen. 

“So far this legislative session has done nothing to correct some of these difficulties, so I think when they took away the ability to register to vote with the last four [numbers] of your Social Security, that made it so much more difficult for so many groups of people,” Shaber said. 

Not only does this affect newly registered college students who may lack the required documents, it also affects the disabled and elderly, as they may not have the means to acquire documents such as a valid Idaho driver’s license. 

Ultimately, Shaber knows the importance of voting and wants to encourage anyone who can to exercise their rights as an American. 

“It’s a right, but it’s also a civic responsibility,” Shaber said. “When people don’t exercise that Constitutional right, it makes it a little bit easier for those in power to try and take it away.” 

Paige Wilton can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu.