ALEC Creates Model Voter ID Legislation Following Obama Election

ALEC’s Public Safety and Elections Task Force approved the “Voter ID Act” model legislation at its July 2009 Atlanta meeting, with final Board of Directors approval on August 27, 2009. The model bill was created in direct response to Barack Obama’s 2008 election victory and designed to restrict voting access for minority and low-income voters who had turned out in historic numbers.

The model legislation was based on Indiana and Georgia’s photo ID laws and required voters to present specific forms of photo identification at polling places. Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky, a long-time advocate of restrictive voting laws, worked closely with ALEC on developing the template. The bill specifically targeted populations less likely to possess driver’s licenses or state-issued photo IDs, including elderly, low-income, minority, and student voters.

ALEC, founded in 1973, brings together approximately 2,000 state legislators with 300 corporate members who pay between $7,000 and $25,000 annually for membership. This structure allows corporations to directly shape state legislation through “task forces” that draft model bills. The Voter ID Act represented a coordinated effort to systematically reduce voter turnout among demographic groups that had supported Obama, framed publicly as “election integrity” measures despite the lack of evidence of voter impersonation fraud.

The model bill would become the template for a nationwide voter suppression campaign launched in 2011 after Republicans gained control of state legislatures in the 2010 midterm elections. This infrastructure created the legislative foundation for what would become the largest coordinated assault on voting rights since Jim Crow, transforming from corporate-written model legislation into enacted law across dozens of states.