Trans voters face more barriers to casting their ballots than in 2024

A report fom the UCLA’s Williams Institute finds that strict voter ID laws increasingly threaten transgender Americans’ ability to vote. In addition, eight states bar changing the gender marker on a driver’s license. As many as 323,700 of about 1.3 million eligible trans voters, or roughly 25%, could face barriers in Tuesday’s midterm election.

Voter ID laws have long been an obstacle for transgender Americans, but they present more challenges in 2026 than in years before. 

In a 2022 survey, 59% of trans respondents with an ID said none of their IDs listed the correct gender. The Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates that voter ID laws could create barriers for as many as 323,700 of about 1.3 million eligible trans voters, or about 25%, in the 2026 midterms. Of those voters, 35% live in states with strict photo ID laws, where a voter without valid ID can cast only a provisional ballot.

Will Tentindo, a staff attorney at the Williams Institute and the lead author of the report, said that could lead to disenfranchisement for trans voters. 

“Those barriers may just create kind of a perfect storm that makes it so that a trans person might be just unable to cast their vote altogether.”

While some states with voter ID laws allow voters without a valid ID to sign an affidavit of identity, 10 strict photo ID states, as classified by the Williams Institute, limit them to a provisional ballot. Those states are:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Kansas
• Mississippi
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Tennessee
• Wisconsin

That ballot won’t be counted unless the voter returns with a valid ID within a short time frame after the election. It works if a voter left their ID at home, but not if they’re unable to update it at all — and that’s becoming increasingly difficult for trans people in some states.  

The changes

The Williams Institute has released a report every election year since 2012 analyzing these barriers for trans voters. This year’s midterms mark an era where protections for transgender and other voters are eroding, Tentindo said. 

“The policy environment has continued to shift in the direction of, unfortunately, creating more likelihood that trans people may experience these barriers when voting,” he said. 

At least 19 states have enacted new restrictions on voting since the 2024 election, according to the report. Those include requirements like showing a birth certificate or passport to register to vote (documents that trans people also face barriers to update). 

And as of last month, eight states have barred changing the gender marker on residents’ driver’s licenses. That’s up from three states in 2024, according to the Williams Institute. 

One state has gone a step further. In February, the Kansas Legislature passed a first-in-the-nation law that prohibits changing the gender marker on driver’s licenses and birth certificates and retroactively invalidates driver’s licenses and birth certificates that had already been updated. 

Tentindo said these barriers are compounded by other factors like homelessness, race and disability that make it more difficult for residents to get state-issued IDs at all.

What could help

One way to address the problem is to remove barriers to mail-in voting, Tentindo said. Thirty-seven states and Washington, D.C., currently allow no-excuse absentee voting, meaning voters don’t have to provide a reason for requesting an absentee ballot. 

Tentindo also suggested expanding poll worker training to include situations where a voter’s ID does not match the gender they present as. 

States could also address these challenges by making it easier to update identity documents, Tentindo said. 

About 23% of trans adults live in states that don’t let them update their gender marker on a driver’s license, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Ten states, home to about 14% of trans adults, require an amended birth certificate, court order or proof of surgery to update the gender marker on driver’s licenses. Still others require certification from a health care provider, but limit which providers can submit this information to the state. 

These requirements can be difficult — and costly — to meet. Even with more lenient requirements, updating ID documents costs money and the paperwork involved can be burdensome, Tentindo said. 

Tentindo said these barriers highlight why it’s important that all eligible voters have a voice in elections. 

“If the interest of voter ID laws is to protect democracy, what our data show are that there’s a sizable population of transgender people who could be disenfranchised because of a lack of careful policy making overall,” he said. “And that includes updating identity documents and also these voter ID laws.”

The impact

Transgender voters are a small percentage of the American population, but they can still sway elections, Tentindo said. 

“Trans people are a really significant voting bloc,” he said. “Sometimes the number of trans people in any state would be enough to swing that election.” 

The report cites Michigan in 2016, when Donald Trump won the state by 10,704 votes. It estimates about 23,000 eligible trans voters there lack accurate IDs.

Tentindo said other voters should care because these obstacles threaten voting rights more broadly.

“Any eligible voter who has registered to vote and shows up to cast their ballot, and then experiences discrimination or outright disenfranchisement because, you know, policies do not consider the ways that they are overly burdened by overlapping laws, that’s an important example that everybody should pay attention to and care about,” he said. “Because everybody has the right to cast a vote in this country if they’re an eligible voter.”