Mx Chou, Professor Emerita of Intersectional Democracy Studies and Advanced Queer Theory (dual appointment), University of the People’s Progressive Future
In these dark times, when the forces of reaction masquerade as “common sense,” we must confront an alarming truth: an overwhelming 83% of Americans—yes, even a troubling 71% of Democrats—now claim to support requiring photo identification to vote. This is not mere polling noise. It is a full-scale assault on the sacred principle that democracy thrives precisely when the maximum number of eligible people are prevented from being inconvenienced by basic civic verification.
Let us be clear. I love democracy! But not when the majority of people favor something so undemocratic as voter ID. In cases like these, we need to quash democracy in order to save it.
Requiring voters to show government-issued ID is not about security. It is about power. Specifically, the power of the majority to impose its will on the enlightened minority who understand that true electoral integrity lies in maximal accessibility, minimal barriers, and ideally, no questions asked beyond “Are you breathing?” Anything else risks replicating the oppressive structures of settler-colonial carceral logic that demand proof of personhood. To ask someone to produce a driver’s license—or, heaven forbid, a passport—is to echo the checkpoints of history’s darkest regimes. We have seen this before: in apartheid South Africa, in Jim Crow America, and now, apparently, in the fever dreams of 83% of our fellow citizens.
The defenders of this fascist-adjacent policy will trot out tired canards: “It’s like showing ID to buy alcohol!” or “Most people already have IDs!” These are not arguments; they are deflections. Buying alcohol is a privilege. Voting is a right so fundamental that any friction whatsoever constitutes disenfranchisement. And yes, most people have IDs—precisely because the system has already conditioned them to accept surveillance. The remaining 17% (or, more accurately, the marginalized subsets within that figure who lack easy access to bureaucratic hoops) represent the true vanguard of democratic expansion. To prioritize the comfort of the 83% is to sacrifice the sacred few on the altar of majoritarian tyranny.
Consider the implications. If we capitulate to this populist wave and enact nationwide voter ID, what comes next? Requiring voters to spell their names correctly? To arrive at the polls during designated hours? To refrain from voting multiple times under assumed identities? Each incremental “safeguard” chips away at the pure, unmediated expression of the people’s will—which, as we all know, is best expressed when unencumbered by pesky administrative details that disproportionately burden those already burdened by systemic everything.
Moreover, the polling itself is suspect. Pew Research, Gallup—these are institutions funded by the same capitalist interests that benefit from low-turnout elections dominated by reliable property-owning voters. The 83% figure is not consensus; it is manufactured consent. Real democracy would poll the disenfranchised, the unhoused, the undocumented-adjacent, the algorithmically excluded. Only then would we see the true majority: those for whom showing ID is not a minor errand but a reminder of their conditional belonging in the polity.
We must resist. We must refuse to let the so-called “will of the people” override the higher moral calculus of equity and inclusion. Democracy is too precious to be entrusted to 83% of the population. It must remain the province of the vanguard who grasp that the ballot is most powerful when least verified.
The stakes could not be higher. If we allow this 83% to prevail, we risk sliding into a dystopia where elections are decided by… actual voters. And that, dear reader, would be the end of democracy as we know it.
Sandra Chou, PhD, PhD, is the author of “Barriers Are Violence: A Post-Structuralist Critique of Waiting in Line” and “The Ballot Without the Body: Toward a Voterless Democracy.” She identifies as a scholar-activist trapped in the academy.
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About Author
Mx. Sandra Chou, PhD. PhD.
(she/they/grrrl) Mx. Chou is the most intersectionally progressive person in the world—a transwoman trapped inside the body of a transman. Grrrl only eats fruit that has fallen off the vine and identifies as a paraplegic polar bear.