In the early 1770s, a Baptist preacher named James Ireland stood in a jail cell in Culpeper County, Virginia. His crime was preaching. He had no license from the established church, and men who preached without one went to jail.

His congregation gathered outside the window to hear him. Someone tried to smoke him out by burning sulfur beneath the grate. Someone else tried to poison him. He kept preaching through the bars until they let him go.

Virginia was not a foreign country. It was America, years before the Declaration of Independence and two decades before the Bill of Rights. Yet, it was jailing men for what that state felt was the wrong kind of Christianity.

The licensing itself was the danger

A few years later, John Leland was a New England Baptist who preached in that same Virginia. He came south in 1776, and then spent fourteen years fighting government licensing of religion. He did not want a license. He wanted the licensing to stop.

The danger was never that government might license the wrong church. The danger was that government with the authority to establish religion also had the authority to block a religion. Our Founders would not allow that.

Our Declaration of Independence grounds the colonists’ rights in a distinctly theistic conception of natural rights: Our rights are not granted by the King or government; they are endowed by the Creator. American government’s legitimate purpose is to secure rights that already exist.

Nations still control religiion. China licenses the congregations it approves and prosecutes the ones it does not. America chose differently at its founding and protected this right: Any peaceful faith is free here, provided it is not forced on anyone, not violent, and not promoting insurrection.

Leland made an argument that cost him something. He argued that the state had no jurisdiction over conscience - not over his, or someone with a different view - both peacefully lived out in community.

He wrote that government should protect the Jew, the Turk, the pagan, and the Christian alike, and that truth needs no help from the sheriff.

He found an ally in James Madison, a planter raised Anglican who did not share Leland’s theology. Virginia’s Baptists made their position known during ratification of our Constitution: They wanted amendments securing the rights of conscience, and they wanted this right defined in written law.

Virginia went first. Its Statute for Religious Freedom, written by Jefferson and driven through by Madison in 1786, ended the state church there five years before the Bill of Rights was ratified.

The First Amendment that followed was not written by men indifferent to religion. It was written by men who took religion seriously enough to know the abuse that happens when government controls it.

A door only half open

Haym Salomon was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, who arrived in New York around 1775 and joined the Sons of Liberty. The British arrested him twice. The second time he was under sentence of death, yet got out of the city financially broke but not seriously harmed.

He landed in Philadelphia and became a broker. When the Continental Army had no money - which was most of the time - Robert Morris, the Superintendent of Finance, turned to Salomon to convert French and Dutch bills of exchange into usable cash.

Salomon did that work for the government at little or no commission. He advanced money to members of Congress who could not otherwise afford to stay in Philadelphia and do their jobs. James Madison was one of them.

Salomon died in 1785, in his forties, and left his family almost nothing.

In most of the states he was helping to free, a Jew could not have held office. Some required a type of Christian oath. Salomon was pouring his health and money into a republic that had not yet decided whether he fully counted.

He signed on anyway.

That is what covenant means. The founding generation did not inherit America the way someone inherits a physical asset like a farm. They chose it. They committed - all in - and some did so knowing the door was only partly open, betting that the love of others in their communities would eventually overcome their fears.

What it cost to sign

Charles Carroll was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence. In the Maryland where he was born, Catholics could not vote, hold office, or practice law.

He had been educated in France, because Maryland would not educate him. He came home to a colony that treated his faith as a liability, even though he was, by most accounts, the wealthiest man in America at that time.

He signed anyway, with more to lose than most. He outlived every other signer. He died in 1832, at ninety-five.

He also owned slaves. Hundreds of them.

Carroll knew what legal exclusion felt like. He had been told his whole life that the law would not fully recognize him. That did not stop him from holding others in a condition immeasurably worse - slavery - and he never freed them.

The enslaved never got a choice. Carroll had one, and in 1797 he used the freedom he did have to introduce a bill in the Maryland Senate for the gradual abolition of slavery. Sadly, it failed.

He was not alone in trying, and he was not alone in failing. Benjamin Franklin spent his last years petitioning Congress to end the slave trade. Thomas Jefferson wrote against slavery, yet freed only a handful of the more than six hundred people he held across his lifetime.

George Washington freed the one hundred twenty-three he owned outright, and provided for their support and schooling. However, the roughly one hundred fifty dower slaves at Mount Vernon were not legally his to free. He was the only slaveholding Founder who became president to free anyone. He also waited, his will enacting this change after his death. Doing it while he lived would have cost him something, and it would have said far more.

Courageous good character is not easy. It is right, it is true, and it serves the common good of all Americans.

These men did their best to do what was right because they had courageous good character that prevailed. It’s easy for us to second guess them hundreds of years later - while we give less scrutiny to our own mistakes. It’s healthier to learn from their mistakes and model their good behaviors.

The standard Adams named

In 1798 John Adams wrote to the Massachusetts Militia that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, and is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

History has proven him correct.

In the colonial years, and in the early years of the republic, government did not protect Leland’s congregation, Salomon’s synagogue, or Carroll’s Mass. In Virginia, government was the one doing the jailing.

What protected these men was that enough of their neighbors would not go along. Some sheltered a preacher they disagreed with. Some kept trading with a merchant their own church told them to shun.

Most simply declined to inform, to harass, or to stand by while others violated their values. They did not protect treacherous or murderous people, but rather commoners like themselves who were trying to live a higher purpose.

The First Amendment held because enough people had already decided to live as though it were true.

Some of them disciplined themselves because they submitted to God. Some because they answered to conscience, or honor, or what a man owes the people on his road. The particular answer varied more than we know - our founding generation included orthodox Christians, Jews, Quakers, Catholics, deists, and a fair number of quiet skeptics.

They did not agree on everything and regularly participated in civil yet spirited discussions of what might be right or wrong. All of them demonstrated that part of their covenant - their choice to be Americans - included respect of each person’s peaceful pursuit of their individual faith.

Think Back.

Remember a time when you fully lived out your faith. It felt so good. It meant something - to others, or to no one but you.

Relive the joy.

How can you build on it?

What if we changed first?

Freedom of religion is a core right of Americans, secured by the First Amendment and ratified with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791.

Our faith and how we live it out determines how we process information and experiences to decide what is true.

This means faith is important, whether it’s simply in our subconscious - or intentionally lived out.

Rather than jump to judging others, what if we first assessed how our faith - whatever it might be - is affecting our lives?

These two questions are a starting point:

#1 - Why do I believe my faith is true?

#2 - How can I better live out what I believe?

Study, trustworthy counsel, and honest conversation with others who share your faith will provide ideas for how to embrace it more fully - for your own meaning in life, and for the common good.

The Seven Daily Disciplines

Faith is the first virtuous root of Simple Liberty’s values. Consider our Disciplines through the lens of Faith:

• Faith and Purpose - How can I be in deeper relationship with God, and/or my belief in a higher purpose - for greater meaning in my life and my relationships with others?

• Integrity - How can I better apply my faith to consistently demonstrate integrity?

• Common Good - How can my faith better serve the common good of my family, community, and nation?

• Justice and Compassion - How can I better live out my faith to support equal justice for all, and compassion for those less fortunate?

• Faithful Relationships - Faith is love for God and/or a higher purpose. How can I better express healthy forms of love to others?

• Excellence - How can I dismiss fear, and take the time necessary to do my best work and fully engage in the relationships most important to me?

• Legacy - How can I better serve my family, friends, community, and America, so they are better than they were before me after I’m gone?

Leland argued for the rights of a Turk he would never meet. Salomon financed a government that would not have seated him. Carroll signed a statement that all men are created equal, then went home to hundreds of people he held as property.

None of them was flawless. Every one of them served their covenant to America’s common good beyond their own interest, and they all fell short of it somewhere.

Where this leads

What you hold as ultimate - consciously or subconsciously - decides how you define truth. It decides whose testimony you accept, which inconvenient facts you seriously consider, and what you do when the evidence contradicts your opinions or hard-felt beliefs.

People who answer to nothing except their tribe and its information feed too easily believe whatever their group promotes. They do not catch dishonesty because they have chosen to blindly trust the source - in exchange for being accepted by the group.

People whose behavior contradicts their stated faith are equally lost.

No one is perfect. Fear motivates most of our worst choices. Courageous good character chooses from love instead - and the result is more meaning in life, less stress, and better relationships.

Faith comes first and truth second, because faith decides what you are willing to receive.

One thought to leave with you. American government establishes no religion. Instead, our Founders established a standard of rights and freedoms equal for all citizens based on Judeo-Christian principles and a respect for our Creator - in such a positive way that some atheists refer to themselves as cultural Christians.

Your challenge this week. Choose one habit to develop that strengthens you in one of the Seven Daily Disciplines’ areas above.

As an option, you could also choose someone who has a faith different than yours. Invite them for coffee or a walk. Sincerely ask them questions about their faith to learn more about it. Not to debate or convert them - or yourself. Just learn more and end the conversation as friends.

If this helped you think back, share it with someone you care about.

Next, we discuss Truth - what is truth and why it is important for a free people to stay free.

We can do this.

Sources

Primary Source - George Washington, letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, August 1790. The government of the United States, he wrote, gives to bigotry no sanction and to persecution no assistance. Roughly three hundred forty words that say the whole thing.
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-the-hebrew-congregation-at-newport/

Primary Source - John Leland, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable (1791). The argument in his own words, from a man who had watched his friends go to jail.
https://www.consource.org/document/the-rights-of-conscience-inalienable-by-john-leland-1791/

Primary Source - John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade, Third Division, Massachusetts Militia, October 11, 1798.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-3102

Research - Robert Putnam and David Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (2010). Worth reading for the method as much as the findings: A longitudinal panel rather than a single snapshot, tracking the same people over time. Their result on interfaith friendship and civic trust is the modern measurement of what this post describes.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/American-Grace/Robert-D-Putnam/9781416566731

History - Thomas Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (2010). The evangelical and deist alliance behind religious liberty, told by a serious historian.
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/thomas-s-kidd/god-of-liberty/9780465022779/?lens=basic-books

Reflection - Bradley Birzer, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll (2010). A sympathetic biography that does not look away from the contradiction.
https://books.google.com/books/about/American_Cicero.html?id=2EpcAwAAQBAJ

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

The Claim

Every adult in the United States must hold and keep current one government-issued photo credential - or one for identity and one for citizenship - answering three requirements: Who are you? May you be here? And, are you a citizen? The credential may be issued as a card, as a cryptographically signed digital credential, or both.

Identity is confirmed by ten fingerprints and both iris images, collected at enrollment and at each renewal, which together produce more than ten times fewer errors than either produces alone.

This is a duty to possess, not to carry. No person may be stopped, questioned, or penalized for not having the credential on them. It applies to every adult resident, and to visitors present longer than ninety days. It authorizes no check that is not already lawful, and it does not resolve what a shared biometric record may be used for - that is a separate claim, with its own evidence and its own limits.

Why It Matters

Identity is a cornerstone every other safeguard rests on. Background checks, watchlists, benefit eligibility, and border screening all assume the system knows who a person is. When that assumption fails, so does every protection built on it.

• CBP seized 19,888 counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses at one Chicago facility in just six months of 2020.[A-000077] Louisville seized 7,789 in fourteen days in 2022; Chicago 4,345 in a single month of 2025.[A-000078]

  Two details in those seizures matter more than the volume: Many licenses shared one photograph across different names, and the barcodes on counterfeit Michigan licenses scanned correctly. [A-000079]

• An online service sold realistic fake IDs for $15.[A-000013] The Treasury has warned that AI-generated identity documents are defeating verification at financial institutions.[A-000014] The Federal Reserve reports generative AI now automates synthetic identity creation, including fabricating supporting records.[A-000069]

• The FTC received more than 1.1 million identity theft reports in 2024.[A-000067] Reported fraud losses across all categories reached $12.5 billion that year, a 25 percent jump, though most came from investment and imposter scams rather than credential fraud.[N-000101]

• All but one of the nineteen September 11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. identification, some by fraud, and those documents let them board flights and rent cars.[A-000065]

On Illegal Immigration

We expect a universal credential recording citizenship status to help limit and police illegal immigration. That is a national security and public safety benefit.

Between 11 and 14 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, and for most of them no document answers whether they may be here. This claim makes status legible. It does not address enforcement, removal, or who should be admitted. Fair laws, applied to everyone, are what the common good requires.

What the Evidence Found

The registry holds 92 facts: 43 affirming, 22 dissenting, 27 neutral, each linked to its end source. Seven sub-claims were tested against it.

Our Verdict

The facts support this claim, conditionally.

On cost. Six of seven sub-claims survived. The seventh could not be validated, because no independent estimate exists. The question is what it costs to extend a system already built, not to build one - which no one has calculated.

On surveillance. This should become law only with the limits written into it - a closed list of permitted uses, a private right of action, and access logs the individual can inspect. A version without those limits is a different proposal, and we do not support it.

On enactment. The Supreme Court has held that Congress cannot compel a state to enact or enforce a federal program. No case establishing that rule involved national security or foreign policy, but we suggest the most expedient path is to follow the model of REAL ID: The requirement falls on the person, not the state. No state is compelled and no resident is excluded.

How It Would Work

Each government does the work it already does.

• The State Department confirms citizenship, as it does for every passport.

• Homeland Security sets the standard, confirms lawful status for non-citizens, and operates the shared biometric record it runs today.

• State motor-vehicle offices collect the documents and biometrics and issue the credential - they gather; they do not decide. Where a state declines, Homeland Security enrolls its residents directly.

Enrollment is completed within five years; credentials renew every eight. Roughly half of adults already hold a passport, so their citizenship is confirmed by records check - though all still require biometric enrollment, because United States passports record no fingerprints.

A National Identity Service Corps carries the work: Federally funded, drawing on the National Guard, active and retired military, and others who wish to serve. This country has organized an effort of this size before - more than three million men served in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Funding comes from a modest fee rather than general revenue, and ends when enrollment ends.

Read the Full Report

Q1 | Meaning explains what the claim means. Q2 | Evidence holds all 92 facts with live links to their sources. Q3 | Impact tests each of the seven sub-claims. Q4 | Solution presents our proposed solution for the common good, including a draft law and the path forward.

Follow the links below - and judge the evidence for yourself.

Forward this to others.

If you are a Member, please comment.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution ┃Summary

Why Is This Claim True?

Welcome!

This section is the factual registry for Claim #01-004-001. Its focus is facts, not arguments: Every entry states one verifiable fact in a single sentence, cites the end source - the statute, court record, official report, database, or study where the fact terminates - and identifies the sub-claim it bears on.

Arguments and interpretations remain in Q1 | Meaning (Sections IX-X) and Q3 | Impact, cited to the parties who make them. No opinion piece is cited here as if it were a fact.

The three lanes - Evidence is numbered as follows:

▪ A-# | Affirming - facts a proponent would introduce to support this claim.

▪ D-# | Dissenting - facts an opponent would introduce to discredit this claim.

▪ N-# | Neutral - statutes, official counts, agency records, and facts both sides might introduce.

Evidence numbering

▪ Fact numbers are permanent and global. Once assigned, a six-digit number is never reused or reassigned, and the same fact carries the same number in every claim where it appears.

▪ The lane letter is not part of the number. It records where this claim places the fact. The same fact may sit in a different lane in a different claim - see the note below.

▪ The digits encode nothing. Not source type, not origin claim, not date. They are a plain sequence.

▪ Sources can be repeated - one source may support multiple entries in any lane.

▪ Every fact must include a link to the source; a fact that cannot be traced to a primary source does not enter the registry.

▪ Sub-claim tags use SC-1 through SC-7, matching Q1 | Meaning, Section II. Sub-claim tags are claim-relative: SC-1 here is unrelated to SC-1 in any other claim.

Sub-claim key

▪ SC-1 - Unverified identity causes real harm, likely undercounted.

▪ SC-2 - Current systems are insufficient and getting weaker.

▪ SC-3 - A universal standard would reduce the harm.

▪ SC-4 - All eligible people would be able to obtain and maintain one.

▪ SC-5 - It does not expand surveillance; uses are limited by statute.

▪ SC-6 - The cost and effort are justified.

▪ SC-7 - It can be implemented fairly and uniformly, and the process already exists in multiple states.

DISCLAIMER

Listing evidence in one of these three lanes does not mean we endorse it as true. We verify two things: The lane - Affirming, Dissenting, Neutral - and that each source states the fact we summarize.

Be aware that many “facts” presented by organizations and individuals have a bias. We have included all “facts” we believe are worthy of consideration, even those that end up dissenting with our proposed solution for the common good, or are neutral on it (could go either way).

Some reasons for the bias are studies rest on assumptions that can be biased; surveys are estimates, not full counts; and people on all sides of an issue do research with the intent to prove themselves right.

As we continue to expand our library of issues, some facts will be listed in multiple claims, and sometimes sit in different lanes - Affirming, Dissenting, or Neutral - because of how they relate to each claim.

Follow the links and judge the evidence for yourself. We provide our conclusions in the Q3 | Impact and Q4 | Solution sections of this claim.

Affirming Facts (A)

A-000013 | SC-2 - In February 2024, journalists documented an underground service, OnlyFake, selling realistic fake-ID images for $15 - advertised as neural-network generated at up to 20,000 documents per day - including a fabricated California driver’s license that passed the automated identity check of a major cryptocurrency exchange.

Source: 404 Media (Feb. 2024). Later forensic analysis questioned how much AI the service actually used; the cost, speed, and successful verification bypass are documented regardless.

Links:

▪ 404 Media: https://www.404media.co/inside-the-underground-site-where-ai-neural-networks-churns-out-fake-ids-onlyfake/

▪ Analysis of the AI claim: https://resistant.ai/blog/onlyfake-generative-ai-fraud

A-000014 | SC-2 - The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert in November 2024 reporting an increase in suspicious-activity filings describing deepfake media - including identity documents created or altered with generative AI - used to circumvent identity verification at financial institutions.

Source: FinCEN, Alert FIN-2024-Alert004 (Nov. 13, 2024).

Links:

▪ Official alert (PDF): https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FinCEN-Alert-DeepFakes-Alert508FINAL.pdf

▪ Press release: https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-issues-alert-fraud-schemes-involving-deepfake-media-targeting-financial

A-000059 | SC-1, SC-2 - A software flaw in New Jersey’s motor-vehicle system registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 - enrolling applicants even though they answered “no” to the citizenship question - and the error took a year to fix and was not disclosed until July 2026.

Source: Governor’s announcement (July 21, 2026); NBC News; New Jersey Monitor. Responsibility is contested and a federal investigation is open; figures may change.

Links:

▪ NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/6600-noncitizens-registered-vote-nj-software-error-governor-says-rcna588524

▪ New Jersey Monitor: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2026/07/21/governor-software-error-non-citizens-register-vote/

A-000060 | SC-1, SC-2 - Oregon’s motor-vehicle system mistakenly registered more than 1,600 people who had not provided proof of citizenship, an error traced to DMV staff mis-selecting document types and discovered only in 2024.

Source: Oregon Secretary of State newsroom (Sept. 2024); Associated Press (Sept. 30, 2024).

Links:

▪ Oregon Secretary of State: https://apps.oregon.gov/oregon-newsroom/OR/SOS/Posts/Post/dmv-potential-ineligible-voters-improper-registration-records

▪ AP report: https://wreg.com/news/your-voice-your-vote/ap-politics/ap-oregon-dmv-waited-weeks-to-tell-elections-officials-about-voter-registration-error/

A-000065 | SC-1 - The 9/11 Commission found that all but one of the nineteen hijackers acquired some form of U.S. identification document, some by fraud, and that these documents assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary activities.

Source: The 9/11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (2004), pp. 384, 390; quoted in DHS written testimony to the House Judiciary Committee (Mar. 2012).

Links:

▪ DHS testimony quoting the report: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id/news/2012/03/21/written-testimony-plcy-house-committee-judiciary-subcommittee-crime-terrorism-and

▪ GAO summary of Commission recommendations: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-303692

A-000066 | SC-1, SC-2 - The 9/11 Commission recommended that the federal government set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification such as driver’s licenses, finding that at many entry points to vulnerable facilities, sources of identification are the last opportunity to confirm that people are who they say they are.

Source: The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), p. 390; recommendation catalogued by GAO and quoted in the Senate report on the 2009 PASS ID bill.

Links:

▪ GAO, Summary of Recommendations: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-303692

▪ S. Rept. 111-104 (quoting p. 390): https://www.congress.gov/committee-report/111th-congress/senate-report/104

A-000067 | SC-1 - The Federal Trade Commission received more than 1.1 million identity theft reports in 2024.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 (Mar. 10, 2025). The Data Book is based on unverified reports filed by consumers and is not a consumer survey. Note: The FTC publishes report counts for identity theft but does not publish a dollar-loss figure for it.

Links:

▪ Data Book 2024: https://www.ftc.gov/reports/consumer-sentinel-network-data-book-2024

▪ Interactive data: https://www.ftc.gov/exploredata

A-000068 | SC-1, SC-2 - The Federal Reserve identifies synthetic identity fraud - fictitious people built on a real Social Security number combined with fabricated details - as the fastest-growing type of identity theft in the United States, with the numbers most often taken from children, the elderly, the homeless, and the deceased because the theft goes undetected for years.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “A victimless crime? Hardly” (Aug. 2022), reporting Federal Reserve synthetic identity fraud research; losses estimated at $20 billion in 2020.

Links:

▪ Federal Reserve Bank of Boston: https://www.bostonfed.org/news-and-events/news/2022/08/synthetic-identity-fraud-is-not-a-victimless-crime-costs-billions-damages-lives.aspx

A-000069 | SC-2 - The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston reports that generative AI is being used to automate the creation of synthetic identities and to make them appear legitimate - including by fabricating supporting records such as synthetic parents - drawing on data from thousands of breaches compromising hundreds of millions of records.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “Gen AI is ramping up the threat of synthetic identity fraud” (Apr. 2025).

Links:

▪ Federal Reserve Bank of Boston: https://www.bostonfed.org/news-and-events/news/2025/04/synthetic-identity-fraud-financial-fraud-expanding-because-of-generative-artificial-intelligence.aspx

A-000070 | SC-3, SC-4, SC-7 - When REAL ID enforcement began at airport checkpoints on May 7, 2025, 81 percent of travelers already presented compliant identification; within two weeks the figure was 93 percent, and by December 2025 TSA reported more than 94 percent.

Source: Transportation Security Administration press releases (Apr. 11, May 21, and Dec. 1, 2025); Department of Homeland Security (May 7, 2025).

Links:

▪ TSA, enforcement begins (81%): https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/04/11/tsa-begins-real-id-full-enforcement-may-7

▪ TSA, two weeks in (93%): https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/05/21/tsa-reminds-public-real-id-enforcement-continues

▪ TSA, December 2025 (94%+): https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/12/01/tsa-introduces-new-45-fee-option-for-travelers-without-real-id

▪ DHS announcement: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/07/tsa-begins-real-id-full-enforcement

A-000071 | SC-5 - Federal law already restricts what may be done with the personal information a state motor-vehicle department collects: The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 prohibits release or use of that information except for fourteen enumerated permissible uses, sets penalties, and makes violators liable in a civil action to the individual whose information was released.

Source: 18 U.S.C. § 2721 et seq. (Driver’s Privacy Protection Act), Pub. L. 103-322 as amended; summarized by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Links:

▪ EPIC summary of the DPPA: https://epic.org/dppa/

A-000072 | SC-5 - The Supreme Court has enforced those statutory limits in both directions - upholding the DPPA against a state challenge in Reno v. Condon (2000), and in Maracich v. Spears (2013) holding that obtaining driver information to solicit clients falls outside the statute’s litigation exception.

Source: Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141 (2000); Maracich v. Spears, 570 U.S. 48 (2013).

Links:

▪ Case summaries and DPPA background: https://epic.org/dppa/

A-000073 | SC-5 - Government capability to track individuals already operates at national scale and is independent of any identity credential: A public mapping project counts roughly 119,000 automated license plate reader cameras deployed across the United States.

Source: DeFlock mapping project, reported by Fox News (2026); Congressional Research Service background on ALPR systems.

Links:

▪ Reporting on the camera count: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/license-plate-cameras-tracking-drivers-everywhere

▪ CRS, ALPR background and legal issues: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13068

▪ CRS, law enforcement use of ALPRs: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48160

A-000074 | SC-1 - U.S. consumers lost an estimated $27.3 billion to identity fraud in 2025, and the Identity Theft Resource Center logged a record 3,322 U.S. data compromises that year, with 80 percent of surveyed consumers reporting they had received at least one breach notice in the preceding twelve months.

Source: Javelin Strategy & Research (2026); Identity Theft Resource Center, 2025 Annual Data Breach Report. (Industry estimates, not official counts.)

Links:

▪ Reporting on both figures: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/last-years-breach-years-identity-fraud

A-000075 | SC-3, SC-7 - A national fingerprint-based identity system already exists and has operated for decades: The FBI’s Interstate Identification Index links the criminal history repositories of the FBI and participating states into a single national network, every record in it is supported by a fingerprint submission, and it has been in operation since 1983.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, IAFIS/NGI Biometric Interoperability documentation; Bureau of Justice Statistics, Comparison of Criminal-History Information Systems.

Links:

▪ FBI CJIS description of the III: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-services-and-information/freedom-of-information-privacy-act/department-of-justice-fbi-privacy-impact-assessments/iafis-ngi-biometric-interoperability

▪ Bureau of Justice Statistics report (PDF): https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/253816.pdf

▪ FBI, Identity History Summary Checks: https://le.fbi.gov/informational-tools/identity-history-summary-checks

A-000076 | SC-1, SC-3 - A state law-enforcement agency states in its public guidance that it is common for criminal offenders to use false or alias names and dates of birth that a name-based records request will not detect, and that fingerprints are the only positive means of identification.

Source: Illinois State Police, “Guide to Understanding Criminal History Record Check Information,” published by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Links:

▪ Illinois guidance (PDF): https://dph.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/idph/files/forms/background-check-guide-071817.pdf

A-000077 | SC-2 - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Chicago’s international mail facility seized 19,888 counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses in 1,513 shipments during the first six months of 2020, arriving mostly from China and Hong Kong and destined for addresses across the United States.

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, local media release (July 2020).

Links:

▪ CBP release: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/over-19k-fraudulent-ids-seized-cbp-officers-chicago

A-000078 | SC-2 - The volume has continued: CBP officers in Louisville seized 7,789 counterfeit driver’s licenses across three shipments in a fourteen-day span in October 2022, and CBP in Chicago seized 4,345 counterfeit licenses in 485 shipments during a single month in 2025.

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, local media releases (Oct. 2022; May 2025).

Links:

▪ CBP Louisville, October 2022: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/2-shipments-containing-4420-counterfeit-driver-s-licenses-seized-cbp

▪ CBP Chicago, 2025 (reported): https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/05/01/CBP-intercepts-counterfeit-watches-licenses/2421746120109/

A-000079 | SC-1, SC-2 - CBP reported two specific findings in the seized documents: Many counterfeit licenses shared the same photograph with different biographical data, and the barcode on counterfeit Michigan licenses functioned correctly when scanned.

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, local media releases (2020).

Links:

▪ CBP Chicago release: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/over-19k-fraudulent-ids-seized-cbp-officers-chicago

▪ CBP Cincinnati release (same photograph, different names): https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cincinnati-cbp-officers-seize-over-2200-fraudulent-ids-year-0

A-000080 | SC-1, SC-2 - CBP states that counterfeit identification documents are used by foreign terrorist organizations, criminal organizations, and persons involved in fraud schemes to avoid attracting attention to illegal activity, and that such documents can support identity theft, human smuggling, and human trafficking.

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, statements of area port directors in agency media releases (2020; 2025).

Links:

▪ CBP Louisville: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-louisville-seizes-more-5000-fake-ids

▪ CBP Dallas-Fort Worth: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-intercepts-counterfeit-driver-s-licenses

A-000084 | SC-6 - Lacking a compliant credential already carries a direct price: Beginning February 1, 2026, TSA charges $45 to a traveler who arrives without an acceptable identification document and must use its identity-verification process instead.

Source: Transportation Security Administration press release (Dec. 1, 2025). Note: This fee exists because REAL ID enforcement exists, so it measures the cost of non-compliance with a standard this claim would extend, not a cost that would arise on its own.

Links:

▪ TSA announcement: https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/12/01/tsa-introduces-new-45-fee-option-for-travelers-without-real-id

A-000103 | SC-5 - A declassified report by the Director of National Intelligence found that the intelligence community purchases increasing volumes of commercially available information, including sensitive location data, and does not know how much it collects, what types, or what it does with the data.

Source: ODNI Senior Advisory Group, Report on Commercially Available Information (Jan. 2022, declassified June 2023). Released in response to oversight by Senator Ron Wyden and a FOIA request from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Links:

▪ ODNI declassified report (PDF): https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022.pdf

▪ ODNI release announcement: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2023/3700-odni-senior-advisory-group-panel-declassified-report-on-commercially-available-information

▪ EPIC analysis of the findings: https://epic.org/odni-report-on-intelligence-agencies-data-purchases-underscores-urgency-of-reform/

A-000104 | SC-5 - The same ODNI report states that government would never have been permitted to compel billions of people to carry location tracking devices, to log and track most of their social interactions, or to keep flawless records of their reading habits - yet smartphones, connected cars, web tracking technologies, and the Internet of Things produced that effect without government participation.

Source: ODNI Senior Advisory Group, Report on Commercially Available Information (Jan. 2022, declassified June 2023).

Links:

▪ ODNI declassified report (PDF): https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022.pdf

A-000105 | SC-5 - Federal agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. Special Operations Command have purchased aggregated smartphone location data from commercial brokers, and records obtained through FOIA litigation confirm that Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection bought bulk access to cellphone location information harvested from smartphone applications.

Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Digital Dragnets: Examining the Government’s Access to Your Personal Data”; American Civil Liberties Union FOIA litigation against DHS (filed Dec. 2020). The purchases occur without the advance judicial review that would ordinarily attend government-compelled acquisition of comparable records.

Links:

▪ CSIS analysis: https://www.csis.org/analysis/digital-dragnets-examining-governments-access-your-personal-data

▪ Brennan Center on federal data purchases: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/federal-agencies-are-secretly-buying-consumer-data

A-000106 | SC-5 - Clearview AI has been awarded contracts with more than 3,000 U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies and claims to have scraped over 10 billion images, while the FBI’s own internal photo database holds roughly 640 million images.

Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Digital Dragnets” (2026).

Links:

▪ CSIS analysis: https://www.csis.org/analysis/digital-dragnets-examining-governments-access-your-personal-data

A-000107 | SC-5 - The Government Accountability Office found five federal agencies using facial recognition technology to monitor or surveil locations in order to determine whether a specific individual is present, including persons on watchlists.

Source: GAO, “Facial Recognition Technology: Current and Planned Uses by Federal Agencies,” GAO-21-526 (Aug. 2021).

Links:

▪ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-526

▪ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-526.pdf

A-000108 | SC-5 - The FBI conducted more than 3.3 million queries of Americans’ communications against its Section 702 holdings between December 2020 and November 2021, up from approximately 1.3 million the previous year - warrantless searches under an authority nominally limited to targeting foreigners located outside the United States.

Source: ODNI Annual Statistical Transparency Report, cited in a joint oversight letter from the House Committee on the Judiciary and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to the FBI Director (May 24, 2022).

Links:

▪ House oversight letter (PDF): https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20220524_jdj_mt_to_wray_fisa_97.pdf

▪ CRS background on Section 702: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48592

A-000113 | SC-1, SC-2 - The federal government does not count the unlawfully present population; it estimates it by subtraction. The residual method estimates all foreign-born residents, subtracts an estimate of the lawfully present, and treats the remainder as unauthorized.

Source: Social Security Bulletin, “Measuring the Number of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States: A Review of the Residual Estimation Method,” Vol. 85 No. 2; Congressional Research Service, “Unauthorized Immigrants: Frequently Asked Questions” (R47218). Note: This is the methodological fact underneath every population figure in this registry. No system records these people, so every number is inferred.

Links:

§ Social Security Bulletin review: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v85n2/v85n2p1.html

§ CRS report: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47218

A-000116 | SC-2 - The official estimates diverge widely enough that Congress has formally asked DHS to explain the discrepancy - a May 2024 letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security noted that the DHS estimate differs drastically from other studies, one of which concluded the population might exceed 22 million, and requested an updated report.

Source: Congressional letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security (May 2, 2024). Note: The 22 million figure has been publicly critiqued, including by the Center for Immigration Studies. The fact entered here is the divergence and the congressional request, not the accuracy of any single estimate.

Links:

§ Congressional letter (PDF): https://roy.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/roy.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Illegal%20Alien%20Population%20Update%20Letter_FINAL%20%282%29.pdf

A-000117 | SC-1 - The share of the unlawfully present population arriving by visa overstay rather than entry without inspection has risen in recent years, meaning a growing portion entered lawfully, were recorded at admission, and then disappeared from the record.

Source: Social Security Bulletin review of estimation methods. Connects to N-000100: 538,548 overstay events in Fiscal Year 2024 alone.

Links:

§ Social Security Bulletin review: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v85n2/v85n2p1.html

A-000119 | SC-2 - The nineteen states that issue credentials without proof of lawful status accept foreign source documents to establish identity - a foreign birth certificate, foreign passport, or consular identification card, with a tax identification number in most states, and a sworn affidavit in New Mexico where no tax number exists.

Source: National Conference of State Legislatures; state motor-vehicle requirements. No American authority can verify these records against the government that issued them. See A-000124 for a documented instance in which fraud in a foreign passport went undetected at the border.

Links:

§ NCSL summary: https://www.ncsl.org/immigration/states-offering-driver-s-licenses-to-immigrants

A-000124 | SC-2 - A September 11 hijacker was admitted to the United States on a passport later found to contain fraudulent travel stamps associated with al Qaeda. The inspector who admitted him did not detect the fraud, and the 9/11 Commission staff concluded he could not have been expected to, because the manipulation was not identified by the intelligence community until after the attacks.

Source: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, staff report “9/11 and Terrorist Travel,” Chapter 2.

Links:

§ 9/11 Commission staff report (PDF): https://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Ch2.pdf

§ Full monograph (PDF): https://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Monograph.pdf

A-000125 | SC-3, SC-7 - A study commissioned before India built its national identity system found that combining both iris images with all ten fingerprints produced accuracy more than an order of magnitude better than either method used alone. The study analyzed biometric matching for 40,000 people across three rural districts.

Source: Unique Identification Authority of India, “Role of Biometric Technology in Aadhaar Enrollment” (Jan. 2012), reporting the findings of the UIDAI enrollment proof-of-concept study.

Links:

§ UIDAI report (PDF): https://www.dematerialisedid.com/PDFs/role_of_biometric_technology_in_aadhaar_jan21_2012.pdf

A-000126 | SC-3, SC-7 - India’s national identity system confirms that each of more than 1.4 billion enrolled residents holds a single identity record by checking all ten fingerprints, both iris images, and a facial image against the entire database at every enrollment and update.

Source: Unique Identification Authority of India; reporting on the UIDAI biometric platform (Feb. 2026). Enrollment captures a photograph, ten fingerprints, and both iris scans, and each record is compared against every other record before a number is issued.

Links:

§ UIDAI platform reporting: https://idtechwire.com/indias-uidai-deploys-ai-powered-invisible-shield-for-aadhaar-biometric-deduplication/

§ Enrollment process description (PDF): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.04160

A-000127 | SC-7 - A state credential that confirms citizenship has been issued at scale: As of October 1, 2025, 2.26 million Washington license and identification card holders held an Enhanced Driver’s License or Enhanced ID, representing 33 percent of that state’s active cardholder population.

Source: Washington State Department of Licensing, Driver Licensing Office Workload Report, 2025 Quarter 3.

Links:

§ WA DOL quarterly report (PDF): https://dol.wa.gov/media/pdf/5020/licensing-office-quarterly-report-2025-q3pdf/download?inline=

A-000128 | SC-7 - The same state absorbed a surge in demand: 168,000 customers received an original Enhanced Driver’s License or Enhanced ID in a single quarter of 2025, a 148 percent increase over the same quarter of 2024, with each original application taking up to five minutes longer than a standard renewal and requiring an in-person visit.

Source: Washington State Department of Licensing, Driver Licensing Office Workload Report, 2025 Quarter 3.

Links:

§ WA DOL quarterly report (PDF): https://dol.wa.gov/media/pdf/5020/licensing-office-quarterly-report-2025-q3pdf/download?inline=

A-000129 | SC-6, SC-7 - The United States has organized a national service program at comparable scale before. More than three million men served in the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1942 - described by one historian as the largest peacetime mobilization in American history - with 275,000 enrolled in the first three months and peak enrollment between 300,000 and 500,000 at one time across roughly 2,600 camps.

Source: Living New Deal; National Park Service; Robert D. Leighninger, Jr., Long-Range Public Investment (2007). Note: The Corps recruited during roughly 25 percent unemployment, so its labor supply arose from economic need rather than from willingness to serve. The logistical achievement transfers; the recruiting conditions do not.

Links:

§ Living New Deal summary: https://livingnewdeal.org/glossary/civilian-conservation-corps-ccc-1933/

§ Program history: https://www.history.com/articles/civilian-conservation-corps

A-000130 | SC-7 - The Civilian Conservation Corps was executed jointly by federal and state authority: The Department of Labor recruited, the Army provided transportation and ran the camps, enrollees were supervised by Army Reserve officers, each state carried out its own enrollment under a quota set by state population, and unemployed World War I veterans were specifically included.

Source: New Georgia Encyclopedia; Living New Deal; Oklahoma Historical Society.

Links:

§ Structure and agency roles: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/civilian-conservation-corps/

§ Living New Deal summary: https://livingnewdeal.org/glossary/civilian-conservation-corps-ccc-1933/

A-000140 | SC-3, SC-5, SC-7 - The Department of Homeland Security already operates a national biometric repository holding more than 320 million unique identities and processing more than 400,000 biometric transactions each day. The system, called the Automated Biometric Identification System, includes both foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, and both criminal and non-criminal records.

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Biometric Identity Management; DHS information paper on data sharing with state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement (Apr. 2025). Its partners include Customs and Border Protection, FEMA, the Departments of State, Justice, and Defense, state and local law enforcement, and the intelligence community. It is the second-largest biometric system in the world, behind only India’s.

Links:

§ DHS biometrics overview: https://www.dhs.gov/biometrics

§ OBIM data-sharing information paper (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-04/25_0414_obim_data-sharing-sltt-law-enforcement.pdf

§ Office of Biometric Identity Management: https://www.dhs.gov/obim

A-000141 | SC-3, SC-7 - The FBI’s national fingerprint index, operating since 1983 and now called Next Generation Identification, is searched by most law enforcement agencies, and its records can be searched alongside the Department of Homeland Security repository without establishing a new connection.

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Biometric Identity Management information paper (Apr. 2025); Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

Links:

§ OBIM information paper (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-04/25_0414_obim_data-sharing-sltt-law-enforcement.pdf

§ FBI CJIS biometric interoperability: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-services-and-information/freedom-of-information-privacy-act/department-of-justice-fbi-privacy-impact-assessments/iafis-ngi-biometric-interoperability

A-000144 | SC-2, SC-3 - The current standard fingerprints the clerk, not the applicant. States must conduct name-based and fingerprint-based criminal history records checks against state criminal records and the FBI’s systems on motor-vehicle employees who can affect the identity information appearing on a license, who have access to the production process, or who are involved in manufacturing the cards. Applicants for a compliant credential submit no fingerprints; the only biometric collected is a digital photograph.

Source: REAL ID Act implementing regulations, 6 CFR Part 37; Department of Homeland Security notice of proposed rulemaking (2006); Transportation Security Administration REAL ID guidance.

Links:

§ 6 CFR Part 37: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-6/chapter-I/part-37

§ DHS rulemaking notice (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/nprm_realid.pdf

§ TSA REAL ID guidance: https://www.tsa.gov/realid/realid-faqs

A-000148 | SC-7 - The same doctrine leaves federal preemption intact. Federal law can preempt state regulation in whole or in part, and can condition a state’s ability to regulate an activity on conformity with federal standards. What it cannot do is compel the state to carry out the federal program.

Source: Congressional Research Service, “The Supreme Court Bets Against Commandeering: Murphy v. NCAA, Sports Gambling, and Federalism” (LSB10133, 2018).

Links:

§ CRS analysis: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10133

A-000149 | SC-7 - Federal authority is at its strongest where foreign affairs are concerned. In Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council the Supreme Court struck down a Massachusetts sanctions law as an intrusion on federal foreign policy, and the Constitution assigns naturalization and the regulation of immigration to the federal government.

Source: Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S. 363 (2000); U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 8, cl. 4. This is preemption rather than commandeering: It bars states from contradicting the federal determination, not from declining to assist it.

Links:

§ Foreign affairs federalism analysis (PDF): https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1117769/files/fulltext.pdf

§ Constitution Annotated, naturalization power: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C4-1/ALDE_00013128/

Dissenting Facts (D)

D-000018 | SC-4 - A national survey estimates that more than 49 million American adults do not possess an unexpired driver’s license bearing their current name and address.

Source: Brennan Center for Justice / University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement national survey (2024). (Survey estimate, n=2,386, weighted.)

Links:

▪ Brennan Center: https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/voting-elections/voting-reform/voter-id

▪ CDCE survey results (PDF): https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20June%202024%20updatev2.pdf

D-000032 | SC-4, SC-6 - A Harvard Law School institute report calculated that obtaining a nominally free voter identification card typically costs the individual $75 to $175 in underlying documents, travel, and time.

Source: Richard Sobel, “The High Cost of ‘Free’ Photo Voter Identification Cards,” Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, Harvard Law School (2014).

Links:

▪ Harvard Law School summary: https://hls.harvard.edu/today/free-voter-ids-costly-harvard-law-report-finds

D-000081 | SC-4 - The Government Accountability Office found that across the ten states it reviewed, an applicant pays an average of $54 to obtain a state identification card, before any fees for the supporting documents required to apply.

Source: GAO, “Homelessness: Barriers to Obtaining ID and Assistance Provided to Help Gain Access,” GAO-24-105435 (2024).

Links:

▪ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105435

▪ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/d24105435.pdf

D-000082 | SC-4 - The same GAO review found that people experiencing homelessness face compounding barriers to obtaining identification: No reliably safe place to store documents, loss or destruction of documents during evictions and encampment clearances, difficulty providing a residential address, inability to pay fees, lack of transportation or technology, and - for homeless youth - inability to obtain parental consent.

Source: GAO-24-105435 (2024).

Links:

▪ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-105435

▪ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/d24105435.pdf

D-000083 | SC-4 - Advocates documented a recurring circular barrier: Applicants seeking a state ID were told they needed a birth certificate, and applicants seeking a birth certificate were told they needed a photo ID.

Source: National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, “Photo Identification Barriers Faced by Homeless Persons” (2004).

Links:

▪ NLCHP report (PDF): https://homelesslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Photo-ID-Barriers-Faced-by-Homeless-Persons-2004.pdf

D-000086 | SC-5 - The Social Security number is the standing example of statutory limits eroding: Created in 1935 for the single purpose of identifying earnings covered by the new program, it became a universal identifier used across government and by credit bureaus, hospitals, and educational institutions.

Source: Cato Institute, “If You Value Privacy, Resist Any Form of National ID Cards.” (Cato is a libertarian policy institute; the history of SSN expansion is independently documented.)

Links:

▪ Cato Institute: https://www.cato.org/commentary/you-value-privacy-resist-any-form-national-id-cards

D-000087 | SC-5 - Statutory and policy limits on identity data have been violated in practice: Officers have been found using automated license plate reader access to stalk former partners and to surveil protestors, and a New York State Inspector General investigation found DMV employees improperly accessing motor-vehicle records in violation of both federal law and department policy.

Source: Center for Democracy and Technology issue brief on ALPRs (2026); New York State Inspector General, DMV database access investigation (2025).

Links:

▪ CDT issue brief: https://cdt.org/insights/cdt-issue-brief-automated-license-plate-readers-alprs/

▪ NY Inspector General report (PDF): https://ig.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2025/11/4.3.25-dmv-improper-accessing-of-dmv-database.pdf

D-000088 | SC-6 - Contemporary estimates of the cost of a national identification system ranged from a minimum of $4 billion to $25-30 billion to establish, plus $3-6 billion per year to operate, and a coalition of organizations noted that neither the 9/11 Commission nor any hearing had studied those costs.

Source: Coalition letter to the U.S. Senate (2005), assembled by the American Civil Liberties Union. (Advocacy source opposing the proposal; figures are the coalition’s compilation of third-party estimates.)

Links:

▪ ACLU coalition letter: https://www.aclu.org/documents/coalition-letter-senate-urging-senators-reject-any-proposal-would-lead-creation-national

▪ Companion letter to the House (EFF copy, PDF): https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/realid/20040920_final_national_id_letter_house.pdf

D-000089 | SC-6, SC-7 - The Cato Institute estimated the cost of REAL ID implementation at roughly $17 billion, with state governments bearing the majority, and documented an unprecedented multi-state legislative revolt against compliance in which political leaders of both parties rejected the program.

Source: Cato Institute, “Real ID Laws Are a National Catastrophe” and “The New National ID Systems” (Policy Analysis No. 749, 2014). (Cato is a libertarian policy institute and opposes the Act; cost figures are its own calculations.)

Links:

▪ Cato commentary: https://www.cato.org/commentary/real-id-laws-are-national-catastrophe

▪ Cato Policy Analysis 749 (PDF): https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa749_web_2.pdf

D-000090 | SC-1 - Federal terrorism data is not collected in a form that records the identity or immigration status of offenders: The FBI tracks investigations and the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis tracks incidents, and neither dataset reports whether an offender held valid identification, held multiple identities, or had overstayed a period of admission - so no inference can be drawn in either direction.

Source: GAO, “Domestic Terrorism: Further Actions Needed to Strengthen FBI and DHS Collaboration to Counter Threats,” GAO-23-104720 (2023), describing what each agency collects.

Links:

▪ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104720

▪ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-104720.pdf

▪ FBI/DHS Strategic Intelligence Assessment (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/21_0514_strategic-intelligence-assessment-data-domestic-terrorism_0.pdf

D-000091 | SC-3 - The Interstate Identification Index covers persons arrested for felonies or serious misdemeanors, so its fingerprint deduplication does not extend to people without an arrest record - the population a universal credential would newly cover.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, CJIS documentation on the Interstate Identification Index; Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Links:

▪ FBI CJIS description of the III: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/more-fbi-services-and-information/freedom-of-information-privacy-act/department-of-justice-fbi-privacy-impact-assessments/iafis-ngi-biometric-interoperability

▪ Bureau of Justice Statistics report (PDF): https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/253816.pdf

D-000102 | SC-1, SC-3 - The largest category of identity theft reported to the FTC in 2024 was credit card fraud, at more than 449,000 reports, of which more than 406,000 involved newly opened accounts rather than charges to existing ones - fraud committed with stolen identity data through remote application, where no identity document is presented.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024. (Confirm the exact report counts in the Data Book category tables before freeze.)

Links:

▪ Data Book 2024: https://www.ftc.gov/reports/consumer-sentinel-network-data-book-2024

▪ Interactive data by category: https://www.ftc.gov/exploredata

D-000111 | SC-5 - Detroit’s police chief acknowledged that the department’s facial recognition system produced incorrect results 96 percent of the time when used as the sole method of identification, and the department continued using it.

Source: Detroit Police Department statements, documented in reporting on facial recognition wrongful arrests. Note: This figure concerns facial recognition, not fingerprint matching, and the two differ substantially in accuracy. It bears on this claim as evidence of how agencies behave when a biometric tool is known to be unreliable.

Links:

▪ ACLU on facial recognition reliability: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/police-say-a-simple-warning-will-prevent-face-recognition-wrongful-arrests-thats-just-not-true

D-000112 | SC-5 - The framework the Director of National Intelligence released in May 2024 sets guidelines for intelligence agencies’ purchase and use of commercially available information but does not restrict which types of data - including location or web browsing information - agencies may purchase.

Source: ODNI framework for commercially available information (May 8, 2024); Electronic Privacy Information Center analysis. (EPIC is a privacy advocacy organization and supports restrictions on such purchases.)

Links:

▪ EPIC analysis of the framework: https://epic.org/odni-releases-framework-for-commercially-available-information/

D-000121 | SC-7 - Florida, Tennessee, and Wyoming have enacted laws invalidating out-of-state licenses issued to people without lawful status, with penalties ranging from fines to misdemeanor charges; Florida was first in 2023 under Senate Bill 1718.

Source: State legislation, reported 2025. Bears on SC-7: States are actively legislating in opposite directions on the same credential, which is evidence that uniform implementation faces political resistance, not merely administrative difficulty.

Links:

§ State-by-state summary: https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-states-immigration-driving-licenses-2115122

D-000131 | SC-5 - Enhanced Driver’s Licenses contain radio frequency identification chips connected to a database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. When California’s legislature passed a bill to issue them in 2015, the governor vetoed it over privacy concerns surrounding the chip, and the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the rollout on the grounds that the chips could be used for tracking and racial profiling.

Source: California Senate Bill 249 (2015) and veto message; American Civil Liberties Union opposition. (The ACLU is a civil-liberties advocacy organization and opposes such credentials.)

Links:

§ California bill analysis: https://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_249_cfa_20150711_165643_asm_comm.html

§ Program description and RFID linkage: https://blog.americansafetycouncil.com/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-they-are-and-where-to-get-them-2/

D-000132 | SC-7 - Two attempts to extend the citizenship-confirming credential beyond the original five states have failed. California’s legislature passed an authorizing bill in 2015 that was vetoed. Ohio enacted a law in 2023, and no cards were ever issued.

Source: California Senate Bill 249 (2015); Ohio House Bill 23 (2023). (Confirm the current status of the Ohio program against a primary state source before freeze.)

Links:

§ California bill analysis: https://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_249_cfa_20150711_165643_asm_comm.html

§ Status summary: https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-states-immigration-driving-licenses-2115122

D-000133 | SC-6, SC-7 - The federal agency that adjudicates citizenship has recently struggled at its current workload. In Fiscal Year 2023, routine passport processing took more than four weeks longer than before the pandemic, driven by record application volume and staff shortages traced to a 2017 hiring freeze; passport specialists worked more than 250,000 hours of overtime that year.

Source: GAO, “Passport Processing: State Department Should Identify Milestones and Resource Needs for Its Plans to Avoid Future Delays,” GAO-25-107164 (Mar. 27, 2025).

Links:

§ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107164

§ Full report: https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-25-107164/index.html

D-000134 | SC-7 - The State Department’s modernization plan is incomplete. As of November 2024 it had developed 83 projects to improve passport processing, but as of December 2024 had defined milestones for only 24 of them and none for the remaining 59.

Source: GAO-25-107164 (Mar. 27, 2025).

Links:

§ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107164

§ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/880/876498.pdf

D-000143 | SC-5, SC-6, SC-7 - The replacement program has repeatedly failed to meet its own commitments. It breached its schedule baseline in 2017, declared a second schedule breach and its first cost breach in 2020, and as of the 2022 rebaseline included no estimate for completing the program. GAO found the cost and schedule estimates unreliable and identified significant shortcomings in program management and privacy.

Source: GAO-23-105959 (2023).

Links:

§ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105959

§ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105959.pdf

D-000145 | SC-5, SC-7 - At least one state prohibits by statute the use of biometric technology to produce identification documents, including facial recognition, fingerprinting, and retinal scanning.

Source: Maine Revised Statutes, 29-A M.R.S. § 1401(9). The same title makes digital photographs and signatures confidential and limits their use to producing licenses.

Links:

§ Maine statute: https://legislature.maine.gov/legis/statutes/29-a/title29-Asec1401.html

§ Analysis of state non-compliance: https://iapp.org/news/a/why-some-states-wont-comply-with-real-id-requirements

D-000146 | SC-7 - The Supreme Court has held that Congress cannot compel a state to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program, and cannot reach the same result by directing the state’s own officers. In Printz v. United States the Court struck down a federal requirement that local law enforcement officers perform background checks, stating that the federal government may neither issue directives requiring the states to address particular problems, nor command the states’ officers to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.

Source: New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992); Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997); Murphy v. NCAA, 584 U.S. 453 (2018). The Court added that no case-by-case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary, which forecloses the argument that a sufficiently important federal interest overcomes the rule.

Links:

§ Constitution Annotated summary: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt10-4-2/ALDE_00013627/

§ CRS analysis of Murphy v. NCAA: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10133

Neutral Record (N)

N-000085 | SC-5 - The REAL ID Act requires participating states to share driver information with other jurisdictions through a network of databases and to store copies of applicants’ source documents, including birth certificates and Social Security records.

Source: REAL ID Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-13, div. B. Both sides introduce this provision: Opponents cite it as evidence that a national identity database was built by another name; proponents cite it as evidence that the sharing infrastructure already exists, so this claim adds no new capability. Cato Institute analysis, cited below, is a libertarian policy institute that opposes the Act.

Links:

▪ Cato Institute, National ID Systems: https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policy-makers-8th-edition-2017/21-national-id-systems

▪ Cato Institute, REAL ID and privacy: https://www.cato.org/commentary/real-id-threatens-privacy-without-adding-security

N-000092 | SC-2, SC-7 - The REAL ID Act of 2005 requires an applicant for a compliant credential to document full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, two proofs of principal residence, and lawful status, and imposes standards on the card’s security features and on the issuing office’s verification of source documents.

Source: REAL ID Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-13, div. B; Department of Homeland Security implementing regulations.

Links:

▪ DHS testimony describing the Act’s provisions: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id/news/2012/03/21/written-testimony-plcy-house-committee-judiciary-subcommittee-crime-terrorism-and

N-000093 | SC-7 - Every state, the District of Columbia, and the five territories now issue REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses and identification cards; compliance is certified by the Department of Homeland Security.

Source: Transportation Security Administration final rule and enforcement notices (2025).

Links:

▪ TSA final rule: https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/01/13/tsa-publishes-final-rule-real-id-enforcement-beginning-may-7-2025

N-000094 | SC-2, SC-7 - REAL ID enforcement took effect on May 7, 2025 - twenty years after enactment - following repeated deadline extensions by successive administrations.

Source: TSA final rule (Jan. 13, 2025); DHS enforcement announcement (May 7, 2025).

Links:

▪ TSA final rule: https://www.tsa.gov/news/press/releases/2025/01/13/tsa-publishes-final-rule-real-id-enforcement-beginning-may-7-2025

▪ DHS announcement: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/07/tsa-begins-real-id-full-enforcement

N-000095 | SC-5 - The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act sets a federal floor rather than a ceiling: States may decline to adopt any of the fourteen permissible uses and may impose stricter rules, and a 2000 amendment requires affirmative consent before a motor-vehicle record may be sold or released to third-party marketers.

Source: 18 U.S.C. § 2721 et seq.; Pub. L. 106-69 (FY 2000 DOT Appropriations Act).

Links:

▪ EPIC summary: https://epic.org/dppa/

N-000096 | SC-5 - The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act’s permissible uses include a broad grant to any federal, state, or local government agency carrying out its functions - which covers law-enforcement queries of motor-vehicle records during investigations, traffic stops, and background checks.

Source: 18 U.S.C. § 2721(b)(1).

Links:

▪ EPIC summary of permissible uses: https://epic.org/dppa/

N-000097 | SC-1, SC-2 - The Congressional Research Service reports that automated license plate reader systems capture license plate number, GPS location, and date and time, retain that data to track vehicle movement over time, compare it against watch lists, and have the potential to identify individuals through facial recognition; no federal appellate court has resolved whether warrantless database access violates the Fourth Amendment.

Source: Congressional Research Service, “Automated License Plate Readers: Background and Legal Issues” (IF13068) and “Law Enforcement and Technology: Use of Automated License Plate Readers” (R48160).

Links:

▪ CRS IF13068: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13068

▪ CRS R48160: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48160

N-000098 | SC-2, SC-5 - States must mark non-compliant credentials on their face as unacceptable for federal purposes and make them visually distinguishable by unique design or color; DHS cautions that possession of a non-compliant card does not indicate the holder’s immigration status, because people obtain them for many reasons unrelated to lawful presence.

Source: REAL ID Act implementing regulations, 6 C.F.R. Part 37; Department of Homeland Security guidance.

Links:

▪ DHS REAL ID program materials: https://www.dhs.gov/real-id/news/2012/03/21/written-testimony-plcy-house-committee-judiciary-subcommittee-crime-terrorism-and

N-000099 | SC-1 - Federal law enforcement recorded $16.6 billion in reported cybercrime losses in 2024, a 33 percent year-over-year increase.

Source: FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report.

Links:

▪ Reporting summarizing the IC3 figure: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/last-years-breach-years-identity-fraud

N-000100 | SC-1, SC-6 - The Department of Homeland Security recorded 538,548 overstay events in Fiscal Year 2024 against 46,657,108 expected departures - people admitted lawfully who remained past their authorized period with no recorded departure, extension, or adjustment of status.

Source: DHS / U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Entry/Exit Overstay Report, Fiscal Year 2024, Report to Congress.

Links:

▪ DHS FY2024 overstay report (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/25_0912_cbp_entry-exit-overstay-report-fiscal-year-2024.pdf

▪ DHS FY2025 report, with FY2023 trend data (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-12/25_0716_cbp_entry-exit-overstay-report-fy25.pdf

N-000101 | SC-1 - Consumers reported losing more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024, a 25 percent increase over 2023 and the largest year-over-year jump the agency has recorded, with investment scams the single largest category at $5.7 billion.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 (Mar. 10, 2025). The Data Book is based on unverified reports filed by consumers and is not a consumer survey. Note: This figure covers fraud overall - investment scams, imposter scams, text-message fraud - most of which involves no identity document. It bounds the universe in which credential-related fraud sits; it does not measure it.

Links:

▪ Data Book 2024: https://www.ftc.gov/reports/consumer-sentinel-network-data-book-2024

▪ Announcement with the investment-scam figure: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/03/new-ftc-data-show-big-jump-reported-losses-fraud-125-billion-2024

▪ Interactive data: https://www.ftc.gov/exploredata

N-000109 | SC-5 - Reported Section 702 queries of U.S. person information have fallen sharply - to 57,094 in 2023 and 5,518 in 2024, rising to 7,413 in 2025 - but the reported totals are incomplete, because the FBI did not count queries performed using certain filtering tools, and in March 2026 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that practice ongoing across the intelligence community.

Source: ODNI Annual Statistical Transparency Report (Apr. 2025); FBI letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee (Mar. 11, 2026); FISA Court opinion (Mar. 2026, classified). Both sides introduce this: Defenders of the authority cite the decline as evidence that reforms work; critics cite the counting changes and the court’s finding as evidence the numbers understate the true volume.

Links:

▪ ODNI transparency report (PDF): https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/702-documents/statistical-transparency-report/ASTR_CY24.pdf

▪ Brennan Center on Section 702: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/section-702-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act

▪ Reporting on the 2025 increase: https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2026/03/fbi-queries-americans-data-under-fisa-702-rose-35-2025/412103/

N-000110 | SC-3, SC-5 - A newspaper investigation identified at least eight Americans wrongfully arrested after facial recognition identified them as suspects with no other corroborating evidence, seven of the eight being Black, with arrests made by police in fifteen departments across twelve states in violation of those departments’ own written policies.

Source: Washington Post investigation (2025); American Civil Liberties Union documentation of wrongful-arrest cases. Both sides introduce this: It demonstrates the harm caused when identity is established badly, and it demonstrates the risk of building identity systems on probabilistic matching.

Links:

▪ ACLU case documentation: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/more-than-a-dozen-wrongful-arrests-due-to-police-reliance-on-facial-recognition-technology

▪ Innocence Project summary: https://innocenceproject.org/news/artificial-intelligence-is-putting-innocent-people-at-risk-of-being-incarcerated/

N-000114 | SC-1 - The DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics estimates 11 million unlawfully present immigrants were living in the United States on January 1, 2022, up from 8.46 million in 2000, and publishes breakdowns by period of entry, country of origin, state of residence, age, and sex.

Source: DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics, Estimates of the Illegal Alien Population Residing in the United States, FY 1990-2022. (Estimate produced by the residual method described in A-000113, not a count.)

Links:

§ OHSS population estimates: https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/illegal/population-estimates

§ USAFacts summary of the OHSS series: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-unauthorized-immigrants-are-in-the-us/country/united-states/

N-000115 | SC-1 - Pew Research Center estimates the unlawfully present population reached 14 million in 2023, after two consecutive years of record growth.

Source: Pew Research Center (Aug. 21, 2025). (Estimate produced by the residual method, not a count.)

Links:

§ Pew Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/

N-000118 | SC-2, SC-7 - As of 2026, nineteen states and the District of Columbia issue driver’s licenses to people without lawful immigration status, and those licenses are marked as not acceptable for federal purposes and cannot be used for federal identification or air travel.

Source: National Conference of State Legislatures; National Immigration Law Center. Both sides introduce this: Proponents cite it as proof the two-tier structure already exists and functions; opponents cite it as proof that states have made a deliberate policy choice this claim would override. The National Immigration Law Center is an advocacy organization that supports extending such licenses to all states.

Links:

§ NCSL summary: https://www.ncsl.org/immigration/states-offering-driver-s-licenses-to-immigrants

§ State-by-state map: https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-states-immigration-driving-licenses-2115122

N-000120 | SC-7 - California issued 110,000 licenses to immigrants in the country illegally during the first seven weeks its program operated, and projected 1.4 million over three years.

Source: California Department of Motor Vehicles figures, reported by the Associated Press (2015).

Links:

§ Associated Press report: https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-issues-110k-drivers-licenses-to-undocumented-immigrants/

N-000122 | SC-2, SC-7 - Section 202(d)(11) of the REAL ID Act expressly authorizes states to issue driver’s licenses and identification cards that are not acceptable for official federal purposes, and federal regulations at 6 CFR Part 37, Subpart F set standards for those non-compliant cards.

Source: REAL ID Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-13, div. B, sec. 202(d)(11); 6 CFR Part 37. Both sides introduce this: Supporters of state licensing cite it as express federal authorization; critics cite it as the provision that created a second tier the 9/11 Commission had asked Congress to close.

Links:

§ REAL ID Act text (PDF): https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real-id-act-text.pdf

§ 6 CFR Part 37: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-6/chapter-I/part-37

N-000123 | SC-2, SC-7 - Federal law makes a person who is not lawfully present ineligible for state and local public benefits, except that a state may extend eligibility through a state law enacted after August 22, 1996 that affirmatively provides for it.

Source: 8 U.S.C. § 1621(a) and § 1621(d). All nineteen states that issue credentials to illegal immigrants did so by state statute enacted after that date - New Mexico in 2003, Utah in 2005, and the remaining seventeen between 2013 and 2023.

Links:

§ 8 U.S.C. § 1621: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title8-section1621&num=0&edition=prelim

N-000135 | SC-2, SC-7 - United States passports do not record fingerprints. Ten-fingerprint collection applies to non-citizens: Consular officers and Customs and Border Protection collect digital fingerprints and a photograph from non-U.S. citizens between the ages of 14 and 79 applying for visas or arriving at major ports of entry. The biometric chip introduced in U.S. passports in 2006 stores the facial image.

Source: U.S. Department of State, Foreign Affairs Manual 9 FAM 403.2; DHS Office of Biometric Identity Management; State Department testimony on biometric passports (2005).

Links:

§ Foreign Affairs Manual: https://fam.state.gov/fam/09FAM/09FAM040302.html

§ Congressional testimony on passport biometrics: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg26515/html/CHRG-109hhrg26515.htm

N-000136 | SC-6, SC-7 - The State Department issued more than 27 million passport books and cards in Fiscal Year 2025, its highest single-year volume, following approximately 24.5 million in 2024 and 22 million in Fiscal Year 2022.

Source: U.S. Department of State (Oct. 2024); Bureau of Consular Affairs (2026).

Links:

§ State Department 2024 announcement: https://2021-2025.state.gov/record-breaking-achievements-in-u-s-passport-processing/

§ FY2025 volume reported: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2026/04/cx-exchange-2026-state-departments-matt-pierce-on-iteratively-meeting-record-demand-for-u-s-passports/

N-000137 | SC-7 - Each state that issues a citizenship-confirming credential must negotiate its own agreement with the federal government. Customs and Border Protection enters into one or more agreements with a state specifying requirements for developing and issuing the credential, including a testing and auditing process; after production, testing, and audit, the Secretary of Homeland Security or the CBP Commissioner may designate it, announced by notice in the Federal Register. Each program is specific to the state, based on that state’s funding and technology.

Source: 8 CFR 235.1(d); Federal Register designation notices for Washington (2008), New York (2008), Vermont and Michigan (2009), and Minnesota (2015); Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, sec. 7209.

Links:

§ Minnesota designation notice: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/07/13/2015-17043/designation-of-an-enhanced-drivers-license-and-identity-document-issued-by-the-state-of-minnesota-as

§ New York designation notice: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2008/12/02/designation-of-an-enhanced-drivers-license-and-identity-document-issued-by-the-state-of-new-york-as

§ Washington designation notice: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2008/04/03/E8-6819/designation-of-an-enhanced-drivers-license-and-identity-document-issued-by-the-state-of-washington

N-000138 | SC-3 - Single-fingerprint identification degrades sharply as the database grows. Federal testing found single-finger identification provides 95 percent accuracy against a gallery of 500 records, 90 percent against 10,000, and 86 percent against 100,000, and concluded that high-accuracy searching of a database of one million subjects or greater requires more than one fingerprint.

Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology, summary of standards for biometric verification.

Links:

§ NIST summary (PDF): https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2021/10/25/nist_appendix_pact_nov02.pdf

N-000139 | SC-6 - The citizenship-confirming credential carries a modest surcharge where it is offered. Washington charges a $35 application fee, a $1 technology fee, and $16 per year, totaling $116 for five years. New York charges a $30 enhanced document fee in addition to standard licensing fees.

Source: Washington State Department of Licensing; New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.

Links:

§ Fee summary: https://blog.americansafetycouncil.com/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-they-are-and-where-to-get-them-2/

§ Washington DOL guide: https://dol.wa.gov/driver-licenses-and-permits/enhanced-driver-license-edl/guide-enhanced-driver-licenses-edl

N-000142 | SC-6, SC-7 - A replacement system is already funded and under construction. The Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology program, begun in 2016, carries an estimated total life cycle cost of about $4.2 billion and is scaled to hold biometrics for 500 million people.

Source: GAO, “Biometric Identity System: DHS Needs to Address Significant Shortcomings in Program Management and Privacy,” GAO-23-105959 (2023); DHS Privacy Impact Assessment for HART Increment 1 (Feb. 2020).

Links:

§ GAO report page: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105959

§ Full report (PDF): https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105959.pdf

N-000147 | SC-7 - None of the cases establishing that limit involved national security. They concerned the Fugitive Slave Act (1842), low-level radioactive waste disposal (1992), handgun background checks (1997), and sports gambling (2018).

Source: Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 41 U.S. 539 (1842); New York v. United States (1992); Printz v. United States (1997); Murphy v. NCAA (2018). Both sides introduce this: Supporters of a national requirement note the doctrine has never been tested against a national security interest; opponents note the Court said no weighing of interests is necessary.

Links:

§ Overview of the four cases (PDF): https://s3.amazonaws.com/tacdocs/The+Anti-Commandeering+Doctrine.pdf

§ Constitution Annotated: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt10-4-2/ALDE_00013627/

N-000150 | SC-7 - Legal scholarship has argued that the anti-commandeering doctrine should also run in the other direction, protecting federal sovereignty from state overreach in the immigration context, on the reasoning that federalism preserves a balance between two sovereigns rather than protecting only one.

Source: Duke Law School faculty scholarship (2013). Note: This is an academic argument, not a holding. No court has adopted it.

Links:

§ Duke Law scholarship abstract: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/2819

Sub-Claim Cross-Reference Matrix

Legend: Built from the sub-claim tags in the registry. Three dashes means no direct factual entry in that lane yet.

Known Gaps

This registry is a first tranche. The following gaps are open, and we state them rather than paper over them:

▪ SC-3 rests on capability, not on measured results. A-000075 and A-000076 establish that fingerprint-based national identification works and that name-based identification does not. What no source establishes is how much harm a universal credential would actually prevent, because no country comparable to the United States has adopted this exact requirement. D-000091 states the strongest objection.

▪ SC-6 rests on a single affirming fact. A-000084 prices one consequence of lacking a credential. Beyond it we have cost estimates from opponents and no independent or official cost study of a universal requirement. Official REAL ID implementation cost data from states would fill this.

▪ The cost of the overstay population is unmeasured. N-000100 records more than half a million overstay events in a single year. A number that size carries cost and risk. We have not found research estimating the financial or safety cost.

▪ Seizure counts are floors, not totals. A-000077 through A-000079 count counterfeit documents that were intercepted. Nothing in the record establishes what share of shipments is caught, so these figures set a minimum and cannot support a claim about the total volume in circulation.

▪ No current polling. As noted in Q1 | Meaning Section XI, the available national-identification polling is roughly two decades old and asked about carrying a card and about fingerprints. This claim does not requiring carrying a card, but does require biometric authentication of identity.

▪ Issuance-fraud prosecutions are not yet catalogued. Convictions for bribery and document fraud at motor-vehicle offices bear directly on SC-2 and are possibly underreported. This is reserved for a separate claim.

▪ Nobody knows the size of the population whose status is unrecorded. A-000113 explains why: It is estimated by subtraction, not counted. The official DHS figure and the leading independent estimate differ by three million,[N-000114, N-000115] and Congress has asked DHS to explain the divergence.[A-000116]

▪ Whether citizenship verification can be performed as a records check rather than a full adjudication. About half of American adults hold a passport, meaning their citizenship has already been determined [N-000136]. Whether confirming an existing record costs materially less than deciding a new claim is the question on which any national schedule depends, and we have found no study of it.

▪ Enhanced Driver’s License fraud findings. A-000127 and A-000128 supply issuance volumes, and N-000137 describes the federal audit process, but we have not located published error rates or fraud findings from the five issuing states.

Source Index

Alphabetical list of all sources cited in the registry. Sources are unnumbered; the permanent IDs belong to facts, not sources. Where a source is an advocacy organization or a policy institute with a stated position, that position is disclosed in the entry itself.

404 Media · American Civil Liberties Union · Bureau of Justice Statistics · Center for Strategic and International Studies · Associated Press · Brennan Center for Justice · Cato Institute · Center for Democracy and Technology · Charles Hamilton Houston Institute (Harvard Law School) · Congressional Research Service · Congress.gov · Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (18 U.S.C. § 2721) · Electronic Frontier Foundation · Electronic Privacy Information Center · Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court · Federal Bureau of Investigation (IC3) · Federal Bureau of Investigation (CJIS) · Federal Reserve Bank of Boston · Federal Trade Commission · FinCEN (U.S. Treasury) · Government Accountability Office · Identity Theft Resource Center · Illinois State Police · Innocence Project · Javelin Strategy & Research · Maracich v. Spears (U.S. 2013) · National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty · NBC News · New Jersey Monitor · New York State Inspector General · Office of the Director of National Intelligence · Oregon Secretary of State · REAL ID Act of 2005 · Reno v. Condon (U.S. 2000) · The 9/11 Commission Report · Transportation Security Administration · U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence · U.S. Customs and Border Protection · U.S. Department of Homeland Security · University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement · Washington Post

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution ┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

What Is Best for the Common Good?

Evidence is noted in [ ]

I. Recap

Q1 | MEANING

This claim proposes a universal identity standard. Every adult in the United States must hold and keep current one government-issued photo credential - or one for identity and one for citizenship - answering three requirements: Who are you? May you be here? And, are you a citizen? Identity is confirmed by ten fingerprints and both iris images, collected at enrollment and at each renewal.

It is a duty to possess, not to carry. It applies to residents and visitors staying longer than ninety days. It builds on the REAL ID standard, now met by every state, and on the Enhanced Driver’s License, which has proven citizenship in five states since 2009. Both are voluntary today. This claim proposes the first unconditional requirement.

Q2 | EVIDENCE

Our registry holds 92 facts: 43 affirming, 22 dissenting, and 27 neutral. Every fact links to its source so you can check it yourself. For each fact we verified two things: Its lane - Affirming, Dissenting, or Neutral; and that the source actually states what we summarize. How much weight each fact deserves is up to you.

Q3 | IMPACT

The seven sub-claim results, in one line each:

▪ SC-1 The harm is large, growing, and officially measured. What is not measured is the share a credential would address.

▪ SC-2 Current systems are insufficient, flawed, and under attack. This is the strongest sub-claim.

▪ SC-3 The method works and has for forty years. Its magnitude is unmeasured.

▪ SC-4 The burden is real and lands on identifiable groups, but most of it is a matter of how the law is written.

▪ SC-5 The surveillance the public fears is already here and was built without any credential. A better index is not a new power - but it is not harmless either.

▪ SC-6 We cannot validate this sub-claim. The program is costed only by its opponents.

▪ SC-7 The systems exist and are national. Feasibility is not the obstacle - the schedule and the legal mechanism are.

UNKNOWNS

Everything below remains open. We state these rather than fill them with estimates:

1. How much harm a universal credential would prevent. We can prove the method works and that the problem is large. Nobody has measured the connection.

2. What a universal requirement would cost. Every figure available comes from an organization opposed to it. None assess the cost of merely adding to existing systems.

3. The cost and risk carried in the overstay population - 538,548 events in one year, with no research quantifying what it means to manage or enforce.[N-000100]

4. What share of counterfeit documents is intercepted versus active. Seizure counts are floors; the denominator is unknown.[A-000077, A-000078]

5. Whether statutory use restrictions hold under a universal system.[A-000071, D-000087, D-000112]

6. Public support for this claim as stated. The available national-identification polling is two decades old and asked about carrying a card and about fingerprints - neither of which this claim requires.

7. Whether the Supreme Court would permit a federal mandate on the states where national security is the interest. It has never ruled on that question,[N-000147] and the doctrine as written forecloses the argument.[D-000146] Section 13 proposes the path that does not require an answer.

II. Solution

OBJECTIVE: What’s best for the common good?

Identity is one cornerstone of every safeguard for the American republic. Background checks, watchlists, benefit eligibility, employment authorization, and border screening all assume the system knows who a person is. When that assumption fails, every protection built on top of it fails with it - risking national security and public safety.

Three cases demonstrate the costs of not having an effective .

One. Stolen from children.

Corey Cato, sentenced September 2022 to 94 months in federal prison, ordered to pay $1,908,481 in restitution.

Cato and co-conspirators created synthetic identities by combining false names and dates of birth with the Social Security numbers of real people, then used those identities and fake ID documents to open bank and credit card accounts. The stolen Social Security numbers included those belonging to children.

He rented an Atlanta apartment under the name “Jason Brown” using a stolen Social Security number and a fake California driver’s license, and maintained a mail drop where the synthetic identities received their bank statements while insulating his real address from detection.

The children whose numbers he used will find out years from now, when they apply for a first loan.

Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, press release
https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/georgia-man-sentenced-over-7-years-prison-synthetic-identities-scheme-defrauded-banks

Two. Eight IDs from one DMV.

The 9/11 Commission staff report found that all but one hijacker obtained some form of state identification, and that six used those state IDs to check in for their flights on September 11.

Seven of the nineteen fraudulently obtained authentic driver’s licenses through the Virginia DMV.

The mechanism, stated by the Commission’s own sources: Airline personnel told 9/11 Commission staff that the Virginia IDs let the hijackers appear assimilated and avoid the greater scrutiny that showing Saudi, Lebanese, or UAE passports would likely have triggered - scrutiny that, according to those personnel, would likely have uncovered the knives and pepper spray they carried, potentially foiling the plot.

The failure was at issuance: Virginia’s requirements were loose enough that unscrupulous lawyers and notaries ran a thriving market processing applicants, with forms that were easy to fake accepted in place of standard proofs.

The documents were real. The identities behind them were not. That is the failure this claim exists to close.

Source: 9/11 Commission staff report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel,” Chapter 2
https://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Ch2.pdf

Already in our registry as A-000065 and A-000124.

Three. A murderer with four credentials.

Johnny Lee Allen was convicted of second-degree murder in Nebraska in 1999 and sentenced to 35 to 50 years. He was released in April 2019. Four months later he used a stolen identity to obtain a Wyoming ID card. Then an Oregon identification card with the same stolen identity. Then an Oregon driver’s license. Then a second Oregon license using his brother’s name.

He used those fraudulently obtained documents in multiple firearm transactions. He cancelled twice when the background check was delayed, and obtained a pistol anyway through someone else. A convicted murderer, absconded from parole, defeated three state issuance processes and used the credentials to try to buy guns.

This claim and related claims seek to eliminate this risk

Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Oregon, press release
https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/man-parole-after-murder-conviction-sentenced-prison-identity-theft-and-making-false

What the three have in common.

None of these failures happened at the moment the credential was shown. All three happened at the counter where the credential was applied for, approved (federal or state), and issued. Our current system to accurately confirm an individual’s identity is broken, and therefore dangerous to citizens.

A credential’s strength is dependent on the process and people who deliver it.

Americans must have a system that accurately connects a person to their real identity, or exposes a poser. This is not surveillance. It is the opposite: It is the difference between taking reasonable steps to maintain national security and public safety versus irresponsibly extending opportunities for evil to be inflicted on citizens and visitors to our nation.

What we expect this claim to do about illegal immigration.

We expect a universal credential recording citizenship status to help limit and better manage illegal immigration. That is a national security and public safety benefit.

Federal statisticians estimate between 11 and 14 million illegal immigrants live in the United States.[N-000114, N-000115]

Illegal immigrant credentials: Nineteen states and the District of Columbia issue credentials to illegal immigrants, marked as invalid for federal purposes.[N-000118] To establish who the applicant is, those states accept a foreign birth certificate, foreign passport, or consular card, and in one state a sworn affidavit.[A-000119]

Foreign credentials: No American authority can verify those records against the government that issued them.

Documents we cannot verify are more vulnerable to fraud than documents we can, and that is not theoretical: A September 11 hijacker was admitted on a passport carrying fraudulent stamps the inspector did not detect and, in the Commission’s own assessment, could not have been expected to detect.[A-000124]

Congress was wrong to build that structure into the REAL ID program because these loopholes violate federal immigration laws and possibly other laws.

REAL ID was enacted to close the gap the 9/11 Commission identified, But unfortunately politicians designed the solution to enable states to create national security and public safety risks by allowing people to remain in the country who are here against the law.

Instead, REAL ID Section 202(d)(11) authorized a second tier of credentials,[N-000122] federal law left states free to extend benefits to illegal immigrants by affirmative state statute,[N-000123] and nineteen states filled that tier with people whose presence federal law makes unlawful.

Three states have since passed laws refusing to recognize those credentials from other states.[D-000121]

Whether the loophole was carelessness or something else, we let you decide The failure is federal, and it is a failure of design.

This claim does not validate that failure. Nor does it address enforcement, removal, or who should be admitted - those are immigration questions belonging to existing law and potential future claims in this library.

This claim has three components: Are you who you say you are? Are you authorized to be here? And, are you a citizen? For millions of people, no current document except a passport answers the last two.

We say this with respect for immigrants, including those here unlawfully, most of whom work hard and harm no one. Fair laws, applied to everyone, are what the common good requires.

A country that cannot control its borders and criminals, cannot maintain its covenant identity, personal safety, and resources.

OUR VERDICT

The facts support this claim - conditionally.

#1 - Cost

Six of seven sub-claims survived the evidence. The seventh, cost, we could not validate, because no independent or official estimate of a universal requirement exists.[D-000088, D-000089]

We do not treat this as fatal, because the infrastructure is already built and paid for: Every state issues a compliant credential today,[N-000093] and the national fingerprint index has run since 1983.[A-000075]

The question is what it costs to extend a system, not to build one - which no one has calculated.

#2 - Surveillance

SC-5 discussed concerns this claim might expand government surveillance. Q3 concluded this claim is an opportunity for citizens to confirm the structure of this law - in contrast to REAL ID - respects their rights, reinforces laws designed for national security and public safety, increases reporting of non-confidential information, and simplifies fair, strict accountability in how this law is administered.

The key regarding surveillance concerns is how the law is written, monitored, and violations prosecuted.

This should become law only with the limits based on Section 9 (below) written into it. A version of this law without those limits is a different proposal, and we do not support it.

#3 - Enactment

▪ The Supreme Court has held that Congress cannot compel a state to enact or enforce a federal program, or reach the same result by directing the state’s own officers. [D-000146, A-000148] (Sections 4, 13)

However, no case establishing that rule involved national security or foreign policy,[N-000147]

▪ If no new information is found to overcome the concern with the Supreme Court, then we advocate this law be enacted the way REAL ID was: The requirement then falls on the person, not the state.

Federal law sets the standard, declines to recognize anything that does not meet it, and preempts any state credential that contradicts a federal determination of status.[A-000148, A-000149] That approach compelled no state and still reached 94 percent compliance.[A-000070]

However, separate of the challenge of homeless people maintaining current identity, the intent of this law is 100% citizen compliance, not the 94% achieved by REAL ID.

WHAT THE LAW MUST INCLUDE

Every requirement below comes from Q2 | Evidence, where the bracketed numbers can be found, and each points to the section of the draft law that delivers it:

1. One credential answering all three requirements - identity, lawful status, and citizenship - because a card that answers the first two forces every institution to verify the third separately, at its own cost, and leaves the status of millions unrecorded.[A-000113, N-000114, N-000115] (Sections 3, 8)

2. One person, one record. A card cannot confirm this by itself. It requires ten fingerprints and both iris images checked against a shared record at issuance and each renewal - the combination produces more than ten times fewer errors than either method alone.[A-000125, A-000126] (Section 6)

3. Issuance integrity. The process of enrollment, management of updates, and renewal must include multiple verification checks to avoid criminal violations and administrative errors. Two states enrolled thousands of people improperly through ordinary administrative failure.[A-000059, A-000060] (Section 6)

4. Verification of foreign source documents, or a stated limit on what they can establish. No American authority can check a foreign birth certificate, passport, or consular card against its issuing government, and fraud in such a document went undetected at the border in a case the 9/11 Commission examined. Also, certain foreign governments or their employees may endorse fraudulent identification that may support anti-American activities.[A-000119, A-000124] (Section 6)

5. A free credential and free source documents for those who meet a state’s standard of need - the average card costs $54 before the documents required to apply, and the full cost of a nominally free ID runs $75 to $175.[D-000081, D-000032] (Section 7)

6. An end to the circular barrier, where a birth certificate is required to get an ID and an ID is required to get a birth certificate.[D-000083] (Section 7)

7. Mobile units staffed by government employees, reaching people who cannot reach an office.[D-000082] (Section 7)

8. A path for people without an address, because the two-proofs-of-residence rule does not merely burden them - as written, it disqualifies them.[D-000082] (Section 5)

9. A list of permitted uses, a private right of action, and access logs the individual can inspect - consistent with existing law - because restrictions on identity data have been violated, and statutory limits have eroded before.[D-000086, D-000087] (Section 9)

10. Personal liability for intentional misuse. Organizational penalties alone did not stop officers from using database access to stalk former partners.[D-000087] (Section 10)

11. Identity confirmed against the credential, not inferred from a probabilistic match. Federal and state law enforcement should confirm identity against the credential and its biometric record. (Section 11)

12. Stated enrollment objectives at the outset and monthly public reporting against them, so the law is measured against what it promised rather than against how it feels. (Sections 2, 12)

13. A temporary service corps to facilitate the enrollment, because the agencies that would do this work are already at capacity.[D-000133, D-000134] (Section 13)

14. No net increase in cost to the government, by funding the program from a modest driver’s license fee or federal fee rather than from general revenue. States make their own funding decisions. Should federal funding be necessary for new equipment and a temporary service corps, that appropriation must be built into this law. (Section 7)

Any fee or appropriation authorized by this law ends with the five-year implementation schedule and may not be extended. New federal law approved by the voters is the only way to continue federal funding beyond that term. (Section 7)

III. Implementation

Simple Liberty Foundation is an educational organization. We research, publish, and teach. We do not lobby or endorse candidates. This research is a first step in public education on this claim. The next steps are:

▪ Engage with individuals - Simple Liberty Members and others - in civil dialog on the facts of this claim, to sharpen the key details.

▪ Study and engage with organizations that came before us with similar proposals, including those that oppose this one, to consider their research and results.

▪ Seek the cost estimate this claim could not find. Of everything unresolved, this is the gap most likely to be closed by someone willing to do the work.

▪ Publish, as education for the people and their representatives: The model law that follows, refined by what we learn; a constitutional analysis of how federal and state responsibilities align; what the law requires, who implements it, and on what schedule; and a list of laws that become unnecessary if it passes.

Whether to act on this education belongs where it always has: With the people and those they elect.

IV. The Draft Law

MODEL LAW - FOR EDUCATION AND PUBLIC DISCUSSION. This is not filed legislation. It is a teaching draft, written in plain language, showing what a law that honors the evidence would say. A state legislature could adapt it for state credentials; Congress could adapt it for the federal standard.

THE IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP VERIFICATION ACT

Section 1 - Name.

This law may be called the Identity and Citizenship Verification Act.

Section 2 - Why This Law Exists, and What It Must Achieve.

The enacting body finds that:

▪ Identity is one cornerstone of every safeguard for the American republic. When the system cannot accurately confirm who a person is, then background checks, watchlists, benefit rules, and employment authorization all fail together.

▪ Counterfeit credentials are cheap, and some of them work. Documents that scan correctly have been seized by the tens of thousands, and generative tools have lowered the skill required to make them.

▪ Issuance can accidentally fail without fraud. Two states enrolled thousands of people improperly through ordinary administrative error, undetected for up to three years.

▪ No law requires an adult to hold identification at all. Every current requirement is a condition on an activity a person may decline.

Between 11 and 14 million illegal immigrants live in the country, and the leading estimates differ by millions. A country that cannot confidently state a reasonably accurate estimate of the number of people here illegally cannot limit the risk or resolve the problem.

▪ Extensive government data collection already exists and was built without any national credential. This law improves accuracy.

The enacting body further declares the objectives this law must achieve, against which it shall be measured under Section 12:

▪ Every eligible adult holds a current credential.

▪ No eligible person is denied one for cost, distance, or lack of an address.

▪ One person holds one identity record.

▪ No use of credential data occurs outside the list in Section 9.

Section 3 - Definitions.

In this law:

▪ “Credential” means a current photo identification document issued by a federal, state, or federally recognized tribal government that meets or exceeds the federal minimum standard and records the holder’s citizenship status. The requirement may be met by one document, or by one for identity and one for citizenship.

▪ “Maintain” means to obtain the credential, keep it unexpired, and update it when name, address, or status changes. It does not mean to carry it.

▪ “Adult” means a person eighteen years of age or older.

▪ “One person, one record” means that no individual holds more than one active identity record in the system.

Section 4 - What Every Adult Must Do.

Every adult present in the United States shall maintain a credential. This is a duty to possess. This claim does not address how it is enforced.

This duty falls on the person. No state is required to issue the credential, and no state officer is required to administer this law. A state may decline to participate; its credentials then do not satisfy this standard, and its residents obtain one through the federal channel established under Section 13.

Section 5 - Who Must Comply, and When.

▪ A visitor present ninety days or less satisfies this law with the credential their own government issued and the record of their admission.

▪ Any person present longer than ninety days shall hold an American credential meeting the standards of this law. Duration is the trigger, not status.

▪ Presence is counted as cumulative days within a rolling twelve-month period, not days since the most recent entry.

▪ A new resident, or a person reaching the age of eighteen, has ninety days to obtain the credential.

A person without a fixed address shall not be denied a credential for that reason. The enacting body shall establish an alternative to the two-proofs-of-residence requirement combined with the biometric - 10 fingerprint and both eye iris scan - requirement. Approaches used elsewhere for alternative yet stable addresses include a shelter or service-provider address of record, a designated agent, or a declaration made under penalty of perjury. The selection is the choice of the participating state. The federal government decides which option for states, if any, that decline to participate.

Section 6 - Issuance Integrity.

The issuing agency shall:

• Scan every source document and transmit the files to the appropriate federal agency responsible for that verification under Section 13 for verification against its issuing authority before the credential is produced.

• Treat a source document issued by a foreign government as unverifiable, and apply the limits the enacting federal agency establishes for what such a document may and may not establish.

• Collect ten fingerprints and both iris images at enrollment, and confirm before the credential is produced that the applicant is not already enrolled under another name. Collect them again at each renewal and repeat the confirmation.

• Audit a sample of issuances each month and report the error rate under Section 12.

• Log every issuance decision, including the identity of the employee who made it, date and time stamped.

• Apply every requirement of this section to the provisioning of a digital credential to a device, which is an issuance event.

Section 7 - Who Pays.

No person shall be charged for the cost of a credential required by this law who meets the state’s standard of need. Each state shall set that standard and fund the program. For those who qualify, the state shall also provide at no charge:

▪ The source documents this law requires, including birth certificates.

▪ Mobile issuance units, staffed by government employees, serving communities distant from a permanent office, who follow a similar process as used for in person registration.

The enacting state body can fund this program from a modest increase in the standard driver’s license fee and/or other fees rather than from general revenue, so that the requirement imposes no net increase in cost to state government. Appropriations may be adjusted for inflation each year.

Section 8 - What the Credential Records.

Every credential shall record, legibly on its face: The holder’s identity, the holder’s lawful status, and whether the holder is a citizen of the United States. A credential issued to a person whose authorization has a term shall show that term. The term may not exceed ten years.

The credential may be issued in physical and digital form. A digital credential shall conform to the international standard for mobile identity documents, shall be cryptographically signed by the issuing authority, and shall permit the holder to disclose only the information a given verification requires. A physical credential shall be issued to every holder regardless of whether a digital credential is also issued.

Section 9 - Limits on Use.

Government entities are limited in their use of data from these credentials as follows:

▪ This law does not change existing law pertaining to how government agencies may use credential information to carry out their functions, even if the systems managing this data becomes upgraded as part of this law.

▪ Individuals are given a simple, secure process to revise their information as needed, due to change in residence, marriage, divorce, and other pertinent personal information.

▪ Each access to a person’s credential record shall be logged with the identity of the person who accessed it, the date, and the stated purpose. Documentation standards for current government agency access does not change under this law. The individual may inspect their own log.

▪ Individuals confirm their preferred federally identification approval process to access the log of activity on their credential when they register for the credential.

▪ Any person whose credential data is accessed outside this list may bring a civil action against the individual and the organization responsible, and recover damages, costs, and fees specific to the actual costs they incurred.

Section 10 - Consequences.

The federal government shall establish consequences for the following three offenses. We recommend the following principles and do not specify penalties when this law is broken:

▪ An individual who knowingly obtains or holds more than one identity record, or who obtains a credential by fraud.

▪ A private entity or individual who accesses another person’s credential data outside the list in Section 9.

▪ A government entity or employee who accesses another person’s credential data outside the list in Section 9.

A person who has simply let a credential lapse has not committed an offense under this section unless the credential has been expired for more than ninety days.

The government body issuing the credential will notify the individual ninety, sixty, forty-five, thirty, fifteen, and five days before expiration, and at one, fifteen, thirty, forty-five, sixty, and ninety days after expiration of their need to renew. For expediency and to limit cost, these notifications should be via email or text, but postal mail can be an option.

Section 11 - Law Enforcement Use.

Confirming identity is part of law enforcement work, and this credential exists in part to increase the accuracy of that process. This law does not restrict an officer from confirming a person’s identity against the credential where the officer has authority to do so.

Section 12 - Proof It Works.

Each month, the implementing agency shall publish aggregate information online, against the objectives stated in Section 2:

▪ Number of active credentials without categorization of sex, location, etc.

▪ Credentials issued, by category, and the number issued at no charge.

▪ Applications denied, and reason.

▪ Number of individuals with duplicate credentials identified, the number duplicate identity records eliminated, and cause of duplicate credentials - categorized by the cause: Individual’s error, administrative error, or criminal - and resolution status.

▪ Violations of Section 9 identified, and their disposition.

The report is a standard query against the agency’s own records and shall not require a separate study. Where a stated objective is not being met, the report shall say so plainly.

Section 13 - Who Implements, What, and When.

Each government does the work it already does.

▪ The State Department confirms citizenship. It makes this determination every time it issues a passport and already holds the record for roughly half of American adults.[N-000136] States do not make citizenship decisions.

▪ The Department of Homeland Security sets the credential standard, certifies participating states, confirms lawful status for non-citizens, and operates the shared biometric record.[A-000140]

▪ A participating state’s motor-vehicle offices collect the documents and the biometrics, transmit them for verification, and issue the credential once it clears. They gather; they do not decide.

▪ Where a state declines to participate, the Department of Homeland Security shall establish a federal enrollment channel serving that state’s residents. No state is compelled and no resident is excluded.

The credential builds on the Enhanced Driver’s License program already active in five states and on the REAL ID standard met by every state.

Enrollment shall be completed within five years of enactment. The enacting body should expect that schedule to be demanding: The current federal standard was enacted in 2005 and did not reach enforcement until 2025.[N-000094] Roughly half of adults already hold a passport, so their citizenship is confirmed by records check rather than new adjudication.[N-000136] All of them still require biometric enrollment, because United States passports record no fingerprints.[N-000135]

Credentials renew every eight years, matching the current federal standard. Fingerprints and iris images are recollected at each renewal.

A National Identity Service Corps shall be established for the five-year enrollment period, federally funded, drawing on the National Guard, active and retired military, and others who wish to serve, trained and assigned to supplement state and federal enrollment offices. The agencies that would otherwise carry this work are already at capacity. [D-000133, D-000134] This country has organized an effort of this size before: More than three million men served in the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1942, with the Department of Labor recruiting, the Army running camps, and each state enrolling under a population quota. [A-000129, A-000130]

Section 14 - Laws This One Replaces.

The enacting body shall list the laws and administrative rules that become unnecessary when this law passes, and repeal them.

Section 15 - If a Court Strikes Part.

If any part of this law is held invalid, the rest remains in effect - except Section 9. If Section 9 is struck in whole or in substantial part, this law shall not take effect. The limits are the condition on which the requirement rests.

V. Status

In public discussion. (August 2026)

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution ┃Summary

What Does This Claim Mean?

Evidence is noted in [ ]

I. The Claim

This claim proposes a universal identity standard. Every adult in the United States must hold - and keep current - one government-issued photo identification document, or one for each purpose, that verifies who they are, confirms federal authorization for them to be on American soil, and records their citizenship status.

Five phrases carry the weight of the claim, and each has a precise meaning.

A. “Every adult”

This requirement applies to every adult resident or visitor, not only citizens. Adult defined as eighteen years old or older.

B. “Must hold and keep current”

This is a requirement to possess, not a requirement to carry it at all times. The obligation is administrative and continuous: Obtain the credential, keep it unexpired, and update it when name or address changes - the same requirement that already attaches to a driver’s license.

A duty to produce identification on demand, or to answer for its absence, is a different law with its own consequences, and is not part of this claim. Section VI discusses this.

C. “Verifies who they are”

Verification means two things:

1. Authentication - the holder is the person the credential names. This is the purpose of a photograph, a signature, and a document check.

2. Uniqueness - one person holds one identity record. No enrollment under more than one name, no identity built from the records of dead people, no single individual appearing in the system as multiple different people.

Authentication without uniqueness is a risk to public safety. This credential lacks value if the system to maintain it is flawed, or corrupt individuals intentionally violate the process. In these two instances, a credential can be genuine and correctly matched to its holder, but allow an individual to have multiple apparently valid credentials.

This is unacceptable because each additional identity is an opportunity for financial crime, evading a criminal record or a protective order, and/or violence committed by someone the system cannot trace.

Thus, this claim asserts uniqueness as a requirement. A card cannot confirm uniqueness by itself. The only way to know a person is not already enrolled under another name is to compare something about the person - not something about the document - against everyone already enrolled.

This means biometrics are needed. This claim adopts the standard proven at national scale: Ten fingerprints and both iris images, collected once at enrollment and checked against the shared record before a credential is issued. Neither method alone is sufficient at this size. Used together, they produce more than ten times fewer errors than either produces alone.

The shared record that makes the check possible, and the statutory limits that must govern every other use of it, are set out in Section XIII.

D. “Confirms federal authorization for them to be on American soil”

The credential confirms the holder’s lawful status: Citizen, lawful permanent resident, or a visitor authorized for a stated term. Where the authorization has an end date, the credential shows it.

This requirement does not grant permission to be in the country. Immigration status is determined by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.

A key purpose of this credential is to confirm existing federal determination on a person’s identification card, so an employer, benefits agency, or licensing board can confirm what the government already decided rather than guessing or going to the expense of confirming on its own.

Today the REAL ID standard verifies lawful status when the person registers, but the card does not display the status. Section IV sets out what that costs.

E. “Records their citizenship status”

The credential, or a separate credential meeting these requirements, records citizenship status. A citizen’s card records citizenship; a lawful resident’s card records lawful residence and the term of that authorization.

This claim proposes that the recorded status be legible on the credential itself.

F. What the claim would build on

This claim does not invent a document category or the systems to support it. The following programs and systems exist now:

1. State Department - a federal record of citizenship determinations, held for everyone who has been issued a passport, covering roughly half of American adults.

2. Department of Homeland Security - a national standard for state-issued photo identification, in the REAL ID Act of 2005, met today by every state.

3. Department of Homeland Security - a federal biometric repository of more than 320 million identities that holds both citizens and non-citizens and both criminal and non-criminal records, assembled from border crossings, visa applications, background investigations, and arrests.

4. State motor-vehicle offices - a credential that confirms citizenship, in the Enhanced Driver’s License, issued in five states since 2009, where state offices collect the documents and the federal government designates the result.

5. Federal Bureau of Investigation - a national fingerprint index, operating since 1983 as part of the criminal justice system and now called Next Generation Identification, covering people who have been arrested.

6. India’s national identity system - ten-print and iris enrollment operating today at a scale of more than a billion people, demonstrating that the method works at this size.

Three things do not exist:

• There is no requirement to hold a single credential that confirms all three requirements and confirms they are current.

• No American identification system for the general public collects fingerprints or iris images at credential issuance.

• No American record has been built by enrolling the general population - the repositories above were assembled from encounters, so a person who has never had one is not in them.

Section IV sets out what each existing system does today, and what would have to change.

II. The Sub-Claims: What Must Be Proven

The claim has seven sub-claims. Affirming, Dissenting, and Neutral facts for each are presented in Q2 | Evidence, and their outcomes are examined in Q3 | Impact. Sub-claims 1-3 assert the problem is real and important, whereas sub-claims 4-7 assert the absence of unacceptable side effects.

• SC-1 - Unverifiable and fraudulent identity causes documented harm to national security and public safety, and that harm is likely undercounted.

• SC-2 - Current identity-document systems are insufficient and eroding: Standards are unevenly enforced, issuance is error- and fraud-prone, and counterfeits and AI-generated documents are lowering the cost and raising the amount of identity fraud.

• SC-3 - Universal possession of a current, standards-compliant photo ID would reduce the risk to public safety.

• SC-4 - All eligible people would be able to obtain and maintain one.

• SC-5 - The requirement does not expand government surveillance of law-abiding people: It adds no capability government does not already possess and use, and the credential’s permitted uses are limited by statute.

• SC-6 - The cost and effort are justified.

• SC-7 - It can be implemented fairly and uniformly, and the process already exists in multiple states.

III. The Credential

This section covers what makes a document qualify at all - who issued it, and what makes it trustworthy. What the document must confirm is the subject of Section IV.

A. “Government-issued”

This term excludes all private credentials - employee badges, membership cards, school IDs issued by private institutions, store accounts. Only a government records the events that establish identity - birth, naturalization, lawful admission - and only a government maintains the records against which those events are checked.

B. What makes a credential secure

The REAL ID Act of 2005 sets the national minimum. An applicant must document full legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, two proofs of principal residence, and lawful status.

The standard also governs the card itself - security features resistant to tampering and counterfeiting - and the issuing office, including verification of the source documents presented.

Every state, the District of Columbia, and the five territories are certified compliant. Compliance is determined by the Department of Homeland Security, not by the state.

C. Qualifying credentials

Under this claim, a credential qualifies if it is issued by a United States government - federal, state, or federally recognized tribal - and meets or exceeds the federal minimum standard.

These typically include REAL ID-compliant state driver’s licenses and identification cards, U.S. passports and passport cards, Enhanced Driver’s Licenses, military identification cards, and tribal identification cards issued by federally recognized tribes, accepted as issued.

D. Source documents are not credentials

A foreign passport with a valid visa and approved admission record is accepted as evidence of identity and lawful status when applying for a state credential. It feeds the verification process. It is not a full qualification on its own.

Foreign documents carry a verification gap that American documents do not. No American authority can check a foreign birth certificate, passport, or consular card against the records of the government that issued it. Documents we cannot verify are more vulnerable to fraud than documents we can, and a credential built on them inherits that vulnerability.

The gap is real: A September 11 hijacker was admitted on a passport carrying fraudulent stamps that the inspector did not detect and, in the 9/11 Commission’s own assessment, could not have been expected to detect.

Every foreign document accepted at an issuance counter can produce a genuine American credential, which means the integrity of American identification depends in part on records the United States cannot audit. This is a vulnerability under SC-2.

E. The non-compliant tier

States also issue credentials that do not meet the federal standard. These cards must state on their face that they are not acceptable for federal purposes, and must be visually distinguishable by unique design or color.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia issue such credentials to illegal immigrants. To establish who the applicant is, those states accept a foreign birth certificate, foreign passport, or consular card, and in one state a sworn affidavit. Section IV returns to what this tier does and does not confirm.

IV. What the Credential Must Confirm

A. The three requirements

A credential under this claim must answer three questions:

1. Who are you? The holder is the person the credential names, and that person appears in the system only once.

2. May you be here? Lawful status - citizen, lawful resident, or authorized visitor.

3. Are you a citizen? The status that determines which rights and benefits the law reserves.

B. What today’s credentials answer

• REAL ID cards are issued to lawfully present noncitizens - permanent residents, and holders of employment authorization, Temporary Protected Status, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals among them - with states relying on federal systems to confirm status.

  Certain categories receive only limited-term credentials, tied to the expiration of the underlying authorization. One concern is a compliant card issued to a citizen and one issued to a lawful resident may be visually indistinguishable.

  REAL ID is the only standard that is national and already met everywhere - and it already meets two of the three requirements.

• Enhanced Driver’s License programs meet all three requirements. Offered by Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington, an EDL provides federally recognized proof of both identity and U.S. citizenship. Only U.S. citizens who can prove citizenship are eligible; a permanent resident card or work visa will not obtain one. In Washington alone, 2.26 million people hold one - a third of that state’s cardholders.

  But the EDL exists in only five states, each under its own separately negotiated federal agreement, and two attempts to add a sixth have failed.

• U.S. passports are federally issued rather than state issued, prove citizenship, and are held by about half of adults, but record no fingerprint or iris scan biometric data.

This confirms three facts:

1. A citizenship-confirming state credential is not hypothetical - it has operated since 2009.

2. Credentials that meet the three requirements are federally designated, not a state improvisation.

3. State motor-vehicle offices can collect and forward the documents that establish citizenship, and issue the credentials.

C. What would have to change

The existing structure stops short in three respects:

1. Status is verified at issuance, but is not consistently legible on the credential.

2. Standards and timeframes to maintain credentials are inconsistent, and automated renewal can confirm payment without confirming the facts that support continued validity.

3. Multiple credentials carry overlapping data, and in some cases critical data is missing entirely - so the same facts get verified repeatedly, by different institutions, at their own cost.

Closing these gaps does not require a new agency or a new document. It requires assigning each task to the government agency that already performs it.

This claim asks for one credential confirming all three requirements, or one confirming the first two and a second to confirm the third: The credential(s) confirms who you are and that you are only one person in the system, whether you may be here, and whether you are a citizen.

Q3 | Impact examines what this would take. Q4 | Solution proposes a draft law.

V. Who Must Comply, and When

The requirement of this claim attaches to presence in the United States, and it scales with the length of that presence.

1. Visitors present ninety days or less satisfy the requirement with the credential their own government issued, together with the record of American government approval of their admission. The United States does not issue identification to short-term visitors, and their identity has already been verified at the border.

2. Anyone present longer than ninety days must hold an American government-issued credential meeting this new federal standard. Duration is the trigger, not status: A student on a multi-year visa, a worker on temporary authorization, a permanent resident, and a citizen all must meet this claim’s requirements.

3. New residents and those reaching adulthood have ninety days - running from their legal arrival in the USA, or the date of their eighteenth birthday - in which to obtain the credential.

The ninety-day line defines who must obtain an American credential and when. Short-term visitors do not - their identity was verified when they were admitted, and they leave before any domestic system needs to know them.

This new law also applies to a large, mostly undocumented population in America. Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States range from the federal government’s 11 million to independent estimates of 14 million or more.

Everyone staying longer must meet this standard for national security and public safety reasons, but also because it benefits them. This credential allows them to engage with American institutions: Opening an account, enrolling in school, seeing a doctor, signing a lease, taking a job. These are example situations where identity matters to someone other than the person holding the credential, and where an unverified identity does its damage.

Here is an additional, important detail: The law must count cumulative days an individual is on American soil within a rolling twelve-month period, so the law can eliminate a departure-and-return cycle that resets the person’s permission to be in our country indefinitely. The process to manage that count is examined in Q3 | Impact.

VI. What the Claim Is Not

It is not a carry mandate. This claim does not address how law enforcement uses the credential.

The requirement this claim establishes is to obtain the credential and keep it current. That is all. It does not require anyone to have it on their person at all times, and it does not specify how law enforcement applies the law to do their job.

This claim also carries four requirements whose remaining components are larger than it can settle. They are listed in Section XIII.

VII. What Current Law Does Not Require

No federal law and no state law currently requires an adult to obtain or maintain a current government-issued photo identification document.

Also, no general-purpose federal card that meets the three requirements of this claim is available to an ordinary adult, and Congress has repeatedly declined to create one.

A driver’s license is required to drive; a passport is required to travel abroad; a REAL ID is required to board a commercial aircraft. Each is a condition on an activity, and a person who forgoes the activity has no obligation at all.

The REAL ID Act was drafted to set standards for state credentials rather than to establish a federal card, understood at the time as the constitutionally and politically available path.

The current system is optional, and built on conditional requirements. Due to advancing security threats from technology and AI, this claim proposes the first unconditional identification requirement in American law.

VIII. What Threats This Claim Addresses

This claim addresses three threats to public safety, all of them growing as technology and AI advance. The risks are most significant to those least equipped to recover - the elderly, the poor, and those least familiar with these systems - but affect us all:

Q2 | Evidence tags each fact to its sub-claim and Q3 | Impact considers its impact.

IX. How Proponents Explain the Claim

Sources: Department of Homeland Security, the 9/11 Commission, national-security policy institutes, immigration-enforcement advocates.

1. Identity is a cornerstone of every other safeguard. Background checks, watchlists, benefit eligibility, and border screening all assume the system knows who a person is. When that assumption is wrong, national security and public safety are at risk.

2. The 9/11 Commission asked for this. It found that the hijackers acquired identification documents that let them operate inside the country, and recommended federal standards for the sources of identification. REAL ID was the response, left half-finished - an optional, incomplete standard rather than a requirement.

3. Fraud is getting cheaper and better. Counterfeit credentials sell online for the price of a fast food meal, and generative tools have lowered the skill required to defeat automated checks.

4. The burden is already borne by nearly everyone. Identification is required to see a doctor, open a bank account, rent an apartment, start a job, buy a car, or board a plane. The claim formalizes an obligation most adults already meet.

5. The cost of the gap falls on the public. Where identity cannot be verified, the cost is absorbed by hospitals, employers, landlords, benefit agencies, and law enforcement - which then increase prices to cover the cost.

6. What identity hides is a public-safety problem. Prior convictions, outstanding warrants, protective orders, and firearm prohibitions attach to a name, and a second false identification eludes capture. The current safeguards are failing, and creating unnecessary risk to the public.

7. Citizenship is a status the law already distinguishes. A credential that cannot confirm citizenship forces institutions to verify it separately, badly, or not at all - at their own additional cost, which is then passed onto the public.

8. The government already runs the systems this would require. Citizenship records, the credential standard, a biometric repository of more than 320 million identities, and a national fingerprint index are all operating today, in the agencies that would carry out this claim (Section F).

X. How Opponents Explain the Claim

Sources: American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cato Institute, National Immigration Law Center, and state-sovereignty advocates. Opposition runs from both the civil-libertarian left and the limited-government right.

1. It is an internal passport in substance. A universal credential becomes the key to ordinary life, and a duty to hold it becomes, in practice, a duty to produce it - regardless of what the statute says about carrying.

2. Function creep is the historical rule. The Social Security number was created for a single program and became a universal identifier. Limits written into statute have consistently eroded, and the burden is on proponents to explain why this claim will play out differently.

3. States have already said no, and one has said no by statute. Maine prohibits its own government from using biometric technology to produce identification documents, including facial recognition, fingerprinting, and retinal scanning. California’s legislature passed a citizenship-confirming credential and the governor vetoed it over the tracking risk. Ohio enacted one and never issued a card.

4. A status marking is a marking. A card that displays citizenship makes status visible in every transaction where the card is shown, and invites discrimination that would otherwise require an inquiry no one would make.

5. The infrastructure is the risk. Verifying uniqueness at national scale requires a national record. The database, not the card, is the actual proposal - and databases are breached, subpoenaed, sold, and repurposed - or abused by the government.

6. The burden falls where it always falls. Millions of adults lack a current credential, and obtaining one costs documents, travel, and time. A mandate converts that gap from an inconvenience into a legal violation.

7. REAL ID’s own history is the counter-argument. A standard enacted in 2005 needed roughly two decades and repeated extensions to reach enforcement - evidence that identity infrastructure is harder, slower, and costlier than advocates predict.

8. It is a federal answer to a state question. Identity documents have always been issued by the states, and a national duty shifts authority in a direction the Constitution does not clearly authorize.

XI. Public Opinion

Public support for identity verification is not the same as support for this claim.

Requiring photo identification to vote draws roughly 83 to 84 percent support, with majorities in every partisan group.

A national identification card has historically polled far lower: Gallup found 54 percent support for requiring all adults to carry a government-issued national ID including fingerprints, and Fox News found 55 percent called national ID cards a good idea in 2006, down from 62 percent in 2002.

Three cautions apply:

1. The national-ID polling is old, taken when security sentiment was unusually high after September 11, 2001, with no comparable recent measurement available.

2. Those questions asked about carrying a card and about fingerprints - neither of which this claim requires.

3. The roughly thirty-point gap between the two measures is too large to be explained by wording alone.

Known gap: No current polling tests this claim as stated - a duty to maintain, not carry, a state-issued credential recording citizenship status. Q2 | Evidence records the facts available.

XII. Scenarios the Claim Must Resolve

1. Adults who have never held identification. A first credential requires source documents - most often a birth certificate - that cost money and time. Who bears that cost, and how the record is reconstructed when missing, must be specified.

2. Adults who already hold a passport. Their citizenship has already been determined by the federal government, so the expensive step is done. What remains is biometric enrollment, because U.S. passports do not record fingerprints. Whether confirming an existing citizenship record costs materially less than deciding a new one is the question any national schedule depends on, and it has not been measured.

3. Credentials that expire. A duty to maintain implies a possible moment of non-compliance when a card lapses - whether the holder let it run out or the authorization expired. What follows from that moment, and whether a lapse of authorization is an immigration matter or an administrative one, can significantly affect SC-5.

4. How identification is renewed. The automated process of driver’s licenses is susceptible to fraud. Automated renewal raises the question of whether identity is re-verified at all, or only payment is confirmed. The process must be specified.

5. The homeless adult. The federal standard requires two proofs of principal residence. A person without an address cannot satisfy it as written. This is the clearest case of a group the claim would exclude unless it provides otherwise.

6. The naturalized citizen. A credential recording status must be updated when status changes. Who initiates that update, and how quickly the record follows the fact, must be specified.

7. The long-staying visitor. A person admitted for a short visit who remains past ninety days crosses the threshold in Section V. How they obtain a credential, and the process to resolve the issue, must be specified.

8. The person holding multiple identities. Any universal enrollment will encounter people enrolled more than once, some innocently and some not. This claim must specify the process to resolve this issue where applicable.

XIII. Requirements Within This Claim

Each of the following is a requirement of this claim. The requirement is established here. One component of each is larger than this claim can settle, and will be researched separately.

A. Fingerprint and iris scan uniqueness in a shared national database

This claim adopts the biometric standard - ten fingerprints and both iris images at enrollment, stated in Section I(C). This is necessary to confirm uniqueness in a world where falsified information is becoming easier, less expensive, and commonplace due to technology and AI advancements.

Confirming that a person is not already enrolled under another name requires a record shared across states.

• The FBI has operated a national fingerprint index since 1983, now called Next Generation Identification, covering people who have been arrested.

• The Department of Homeland Security operates a larger one - the Automated Biometric Identification System, holding more than 320 million identities, including citizens and non-citizens, criminal and non-criminal records.

Neither was built by enrolling the general population; both were assembled from encounters.

Extending this standard to everyone raises the question: What may that record be used for, by whom, and under what limit?

This will be researched by our team as a separate claim under the issue of Republic, in the topic of Citizenship.

B. Immigration status verification

A credential that records status can be used to verify visitation and citizenship status, and we believe it should - at the points where the law requires it of citizens or lawful residents.

Examples include employment verification, benefit eligibility, and various types of licensing. What the credential may be checked for, and by whom, is discussed in SC-5.

This claim does not address enforcement, removal, or who should be admitted. This will be researched by our team as a separate claim under the issue of Security, in the topic of Immigration.

C. Voter registration and verification at the polls

Claim #04-003-002 proposes that government-issued photo ID and signature verification be required at the time of voting, and it names this claim as one of its dependencies.

Based on the facts, both are needed: A universal credential recording citizenship makes verified voting simpler and more accurate, and verified voting is one of the strongest public justifications for the credential.

Each is a significant change to American law. Both increase trust in our government systems, protect the integrity of citizenship, and strengthen the simplicity of identification verification for activities involving the public safety.

This has been researched by our team as a separate claim under the issue of Elections, in the topic of Election Integrity.

D. Issuance integrity

The value of any credential depends entirely on the integrity of the organization, individuals, and process that issues it. A fraudulently obtained genuine credential defeats most every check downstream.

Issuance integrity is named in SC-2, and Q2 | Evidence treats failures of issuance as evidence bearing directly on whether current systems are secure, and whether consequences for knowingly violating the law are quick and meaningful.

However, the process to improve issuance integrity is a separate claim. This will be researched by our team as a separate claim under the issue of Security, in the topic of National Defense.

XIV. Conclusion

This claim proposes that every adult in the United States hold and keep one current government-issued photo credential that establishes who they are and they appear in the system only once; their lawful status, meaning their right to be on American soil; and whether they are a citizen.

Ideally this is a single card. Where one card cannot yet answer all three questions, the requirement may be met by credentials that meet this standard and together establish identity, lawful status, and citizenship.

It builds on a federal standard that already exists in the REAL ID program, and Enhanced Driver’s Licenses - a citizenship-confirming credential that already operates in five states. Today both are voluntary, and identification is required only as a condition of some activity a person may decline.

This claim does not require citizens and visitors to carry this identification at all times, nor does it specify law enforcement’s policies to confirm individual identity and consequences.

Its validity rests on seven sub-claims outlined in Section II above.

We recognize and respect concerns regarding the fifth sub-claim. We will work through that and the others in Q2 | Evidence, Q3 | Impact, and Q4 | Solution.

We encourage you to consider the facts in Q2 | Evidence, the effects of this potential law in Q3 | Impact, and what’s the best solution for the common good in Q4 | Solution.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution ┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution ┃Summary

Who And What Does This Claim Impact?

Evidence is noted in [ ]

I. Introduction

Q1 | Meaning explained what this claim means. Q2 | Evidence listed the facts. Below we explore what happens if the claim becomes law - who and what are affected, and how much. Our proposed solution is provided in Q4 | Solution.

We run every claim through four tests to consider its impact:

• Who and What are affected?

• How Big is it, based on the evidence?

• Options: What can be done to limit the negatives and increase the positives?

• Projections: What happens over time?

NOTE: Evidence is referenced in [] - e.g., Evidence A-000075 is listed as [A-000075] and can be found on the Evidence page.

We trust evidence in this order:

1. Laws and court records

2. Official records and audits

3. Peer-reviewed studies

4. Surveys - estimates, not counts (see “Is That a Fact?”)

5. Claims from advocacy groups

II. Solution Dependencies: What This Claim Needs to Work

This claim requires every adult to hold one credential answering three questions: Who are you? May you be here? Are you a citizen?

The following dependencies are important to this claim.

#1 - One person, one identity.

Due to advancing security threats from technology and AI, this claim seeks to fully confirm every individual citizen and visitor to our nation exists only once in the federal government identification systems.

This claim adopts the standard proven at national scale: Ten fingerprints and both iris images, collected once at enrollment and renewal. Used together they produce more than ten times fewer errors than either produces alone,[A-000125] and single-fingerprint matching fails outright above a million records.[N-000138]

The infrastructure exists. India confirms a single identity for more than 1.4 billion people using this combination,[A-000126] and the United States already operates two biometric systems at national scale (SC-7).

Offenders commonly use false names that a name-based check will not detect, and fingerprints are a proven method of identification.[A-000076]

What our current systems do not include are people who have never had an encounter with DHS or been convicted of a crime. None were built by enrolling the general population, and the current U.S. general population credential process collects no fingerprints or iris images at all - it fingerprints many types of government employees involved with these systems, but not the general public.[A-000144]

#2 - Issuance must be sound.

The accuracy of a credential depends on the process and people that issued it. Two states have demonstrated the impact of failure:

• A New Jersey software error enrolled roughly 6,600 noncitizens over a year.[A-000059]

• Oregon mis-recorded more than 1,600 applicants because staff selected the wrong document type.[A-000060]

Neither was fraud. Both were administrative failure, undetected for months or years. This dependency sits inside SC-2, and the strength of this claim depends on creating and maintaining one credential per individual.

#3 - Voting. Claim #04-003-002 proposes photo ID and signature verification at the time of voting, and names this claim as a dependency.

A universal credential recording citizenship makes verified voting simpler; verified voting is one of the strongest public justifications for the credential. Each is tested separately.

#4 - Limits on what government may collect and how it may use it.

This claim proposes one credential. This data, separate of biometric information, is already being collected by the government and has existing laws limiting its access and usage. These systems were built without a national credential mandate.[A-000103, A-000105, A-000108]

Surveillance concerns are considered under SC-5. Government data collection and permitted use will be researched by our team as separate claims.

#5 - Each government agency does the job it already does.

This claim assigns no new function to any agency. The division of work is set out in Q1 | Meaning, Section IV: The State Department confirms citizenship, Homeland Security sets the standard and operates the biometric repository, and state motor-vehicle offices collect and issue.

• Each dependency fails without the others. A credential built on unsound issuance, or without limits on use, is not the credential this claim proposes.

III. Testing Each Sub-Claim

SC-1 | Unverified identity causes real harm, and the harm is likely undercounted.

The harm is documented:

• The FTC received more than 1.1 million identity theft reports in 2024.[A-000067] Reported fraud losses across all categories reached $12.5 billion that year, a 25 percent jump, though most came from investment and imposter scams rather than credential fraud.[N-000101]

• Industry estimates put 2025 identity fraud losses at $27.3 billion against a record 3,322 U.S. data compromises,[A-000074] and the FBI recorded $16.6 billion in reported cybercrime losses in 2024, up 33 percent.[N-000099]

• Synthetic identity fraud - a fictitious person built on a real Social Security number - is the fastest-growing type of identity theft, and the numbers are most often taken from children, the elderly, the homeless, and the dead, because nobody notices for years.[A-000068]

• All but one of the nineteen September 11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. identification, some by fraud, and those documents let them board flights and rent cars.[A-000065]

• Between 11 and 14 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, a figure produced by estimating the foreign-born population and subtracting the lawfully present.[A-000113, N-000114, N-000115] Most hold no document answering if they may be here or whether they are citizens.

• Congress has asked the Secretary of Homeland Security why the official estimate and the leading independent estimate differ by millions.[A-000116] A growing share of that population entered legally, was recorded at the border, and then vanished from the record as they overstayed their visas.[A-000117]

• CBP states that counterfeit identity documents are used by foreign terrorist organizations, criminal organizations, and fraud schemes to avoid attracting attention.[A-000080]

• Aliases defeat name-based records checks, and law enforcement says so in its own public guidance.[A-000076]

What the evidence does not show:

• Federal terrorism data is not generally collected in a form that records whether an offender held valid identification, held several identities, or had overstayed an admission.[D-000090]

Summary of SC-1: The harm is large, growing, and officially measured.

What is not measured is the extent a required universal credential would limit or eliminate the harm. Most identity theft is theft of identity data - a stolen Social Security number used to open an account online, where no document is presented.

The largest category reported to the FTC in 2024 was credit card fraud, and more than 406,000 of those 449,000 reports involved newly opened accounts.[D-000102] The FTC publishes report counts, but not losses by category, so the share a credential would address cannot be priced from the public record.

This credential is focused on identity confirmation, not confirmation of other documents or accounts an individual acquires. It reaches three categories:

• Fraud committed by presenting false identification to a person or a scanner.

• Synthetic identities, which a biometric check at issuance would catch.

• One person or entity currently or attempting to operate under several enrollments.

There is another important fact to consider: DHS recorded 538,548 overstay events in Fiscal Year 2024.[N-000100] We have found no research measuring the cost or the risk carried in that number, but it is reasonable to think the cost is significant.

SC-2 | Current systems are insufficient, and technology is making them weaker.

The standard took twenty years to arrive:

• The 9/11 Commission recommended federal standards for identification sources in 2004.[A-000066] REAL ID was enacted in 2005.[N-000092] Enforcement began May 7, 2025, after repeated deadline extensions.[N-000094]

Meanwhile the counterfeits improved:

• CBP seized 19,888 counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses at one Chicago facility in just six months of 2020.[A-000077] Louisville seized 7,789 in fourteen days in 2022; Chicago 4,345 in a single month of 2025.[A-000078]

Two details in those seizures matter more than the volume: Many licenses shared one photograph across different names, and the barcodes on counterfeit Michigan licenses scanned correctly.[A-000079]

• An online service sold realistic fake IDs for $15.[A-000013] The Treasury has warned that AI-generated identity documents are defeating verification at financial institutions.[A-000014] The Federal Reserve reports generative AI now automates synthetic identity creation, including fabricating supporting records.[A-000069]

• Foreign documents carry a verification gap. Nineteen states accept a foreign birth certificate, passport, or consular card to establish identity,[A-000119] and no American authority can check those records against the government that issued them.

A September 11 hijacker was admitted on a passport carrying fraudulent stamps the inspector did not detect and, in the Commission’s assessment, could not have been expected to detect.[A-000124]

And issuance itself fails:

• Congress passed laws that authorized exceptions to existing immigration-related laws. Section 202(d)(11) of the REAL ID Act expressly permits states to issue credentials that are not acceptable for federal purposes,[N-000122] and federal law permits states to extend benefits to illegal immigrants by affirmative state statute.[N-000123] Nineteen states used both provisions.[N-000118]

• A non-compliant card fails to confirm if the holder is here legally. States must mark these cards as unacceptable for federal purposes. DHS warns the current marking says nothing about immigration status.[N-000098]

• New Jersey: ~6,600 improper registrations from a software error, undisclosed for up to three years.[A-000059]

• Oregon: 1,600+ from staff mis-selecting document types.[A-000060]

• The current process collects nothing that would catch a duplicate. States must run fingerprint-based criminal history checks on motor-vehicle employees who can affect what appears on a license. Applicants submit no fingerprints; the only biometric collected is a photograph.[A-000144]

• The scale is significant. California alone issued 110,000 such credentials in the first seven weeks of its program and projected 1.4 million over three years.[N-000120]

Summary of SC-2: It is true that current systems are insufficient, flawed, and under attack by criminals.

• The safeguards are weaker than the public assumes, and the tools to defeat them are cheaper and better every year.

• A seizure count is a floor, not a total - nothing in the record establishes what share of shipments is caught - so the true volume of fake IDs in circulation is higher than the numbers above, by an unknown multiple.

SC-3 | A universal standard would reduce the harm.

What supports it:

• The standard this claim adopts is measured, not assumed: Ten fingerprints and both iris images together produce more than ten times fewer errors than either alone,[A-000125] and the combination confirms a single identity for 1.4 billion people today.[A-000126] Name-based identification does not work at this scale.[A-000076, N-000138]

• When the REAL ID requirement arrived, people accepted it. Compliance at airport checkpoints ran 81 percent on the first day of enforcement, 93 percent two weeks later, and above 94 percent by December 2025.[A-000070]

New standard:

• The Interstate Identification Index already removes duplicate records for anyone arrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor. Yet, it does not consider people without an arrest record - which is the majority of our population. This claim would include everyone for the first time.[D-000091]

• No country comparable to the United States has adopted this exact requirement, so no measured prevention data exists anywhere.

Summary of SC-3: The evidence establishes that existing methods limit the harm, but the data has limits and does not measure what a universal credential would add:

• The method works, at national scale, and has for forty years.

• Current data does not confirm the magnitude of benefits - how much harm a universal credential would actually prevent.

• Criminals - anyone with an arrest history - who has multiple identities gets caught today.

• People without an arrest record, whether through innocence or simply never having been caught, are not considered.

Our Q4 | Solution must weigh these facts.

SC-4 | All eligible people would be able to obtain and maintain one.

Who could be shut out:

• A survey estimates more than 49 million American adults lack government-issued photo identification with their current name and address.[D-000018] (Survey estimate, weighted.)

• GAO found an average $54 charge for a state ID across ten states, before the documents needed to apply,[D-000081] and a Harvard institute put the full cost of a nominally free ID at $75 to $175.[D-000032]

• People experiencing homelessness face compounding barriers: No safe place to store documents, loss during evictions and encampment clearances, no residential address, no transportation.[D-000082]

• A circular barrier is documented: A birth certificate is required to get an ID, and a photo ID is required to get a birth certificate.[D-000083]

On the other side:

• REAL ID compliance moved from 81 percent to above 94 percent within months of enforcement.[A-000070] When people needed the credential, most got it quickly.

Options:

• Make the credential free along with the underlying documents for those who meet a standard of need. The cost should be a burden of state governments and could be covered by an increase in driver’s license fees or other state fees.

• Break the circular barrier by statute - a single verified enrollment producing both records, rather than each requiring the other[D-000083] - and accept an alternative to a residential address, since the two-proofs-of-residence rule is the provision that excludes people without one.[D-000082]

• Mobile unit issuance staffed by government employees, reaching people who cannot reach an office.

• Embrace the biometric confirmation of this claim - 10-fingerprint and both iris scans - to fully confirm people who lack an address.

Projections - what is left:

• The residual burden is documents, travel, and time - the three costs that survived every free-ID program studied.

• The homeless population is the most challenging, but as mentioned above, there are solutions.

Summary of SC-4: There is a burden, it is measurable, and it is reasonable for the vast majority of people and resolvable for the rest.

• The REAL ID experience suggests the residual group - people without identification - is smaller than the survey estimates imply once the credential is actually required.

• The fixes are known and listed above: A free credential, free documents, mobile issuance, and a statutory end to the circular barrier.

• The exception is people without an address, for whom the current federal standard is not merely burdensome, but disqualifying as written.

SC-5 | The requirement does not expand government surveillance of law-abiding people.

What supports it:

• The government says so itself. A declassified report by the Director of National Intelligence found that the intelligence community buys growing volumes of commercial data, including sensitive location data, and does not know how much it holds or what it does with it.[A-000103]

  The same report states that government could never have compelled people to carry tracking devices or log their reading habits - yet smartphones, connected cars, and web tracking produced that effect anyway.[A-000104]

• What agencies buy and scrape dwarfs any credential. Six federal agencies have bought smartphone location data from commercial brokers, and FOIA litigation confirmed ICE and CBP bought bulk cellphone location data harvested from apps. [A-000105]

  Clearview AI holds contracts with over 3,000 agencies and claims 10 billion scraped images, against roughly 640 million in the FBI’s own database, [A-000106] and GAO found five federal agencies using facial recognition to determine whether a person is present at a location. [A-000107]

• Communications are queried in the millions. The FBI ran more than 3.3 million warrantless searches of Americans’ communications in a single year under an authority nominally limited to foreigners abroad. [A-000108] Reported numbers have fallen sharply since, though the totals are incomplete and the FISA Court found the undercounting ongoing in March 2026.[N-000109]

• None of current government surveillance was built to support an identity card. It was done for national security and/or public safety. Roughly 119,000 license plate reader cameras operate nationwide, capturing plate, location, and time, retaining the data to track movement, and comparing it against watch lists.[A-000073, N-000097]

• The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act limits DMV personal information to fourteen permissible uses, sets penalties, and makes violators civilly liable to the individual. [A-000071] It is a federal floor - states may be stricter[N-000095] - and the courts enforce it in both directions.[A-000072]

• The interstate sharing this claim would rely on already exists under REAL ID.[N-000085]

The objections:

• Restrictions get violated. Officers have used license plate reader access to stalk former partners and surveil protestors, and a New York Inspector General investigation found DMV employees improperly accessing motor-vehicle records in breach of both federal law and department policy.[D-000087]

• Limits erode. The Social Security number was created in 1935 to identify covered earnings and became a universal identifier across government, credit bureaus, hospitals, and schools.[D-000086]

• The restrictions are narrow in reach. The DPPA’s permissible uses include a broad grant to any government agency carrying out its functions,[N-000096] and the framework ODNI released in 2024 restricts no category of data agencies may purchase, including location and web browsing.[D-000112] The DPPA covers motor-vehicle records. Nothing comparable covers what agencies buy.

• Facial recognition produces ranked probability scores that fail, but is not part of this claim. At least eight Americans have been wrongfully arrested on facial recognition matches with no corroborating evidence, seven of the eight were Black.[N-000110] Detroit’s police chief acknowledged his department’s system was wrong 96 percent of the time as a sole identifier, and the department kept using it.[D-000111]

Options:

• Give the individual a right of action, as the DPPA does.[A-000071] Enforcement that depends only on an agency policing itself is the pattern that already failed.

• Require access logging that the individual can inspect - the person can see who looked at their record and why. However, current laws probably limit these logs and the reasons why records were reviewed.

• Give law enforcement a reliable tool and require its use. Confirming identity is part of the job, and this credential exists in part to make that possible. The wrongful arrests went wrong not because police checked identity, but because a facial recognition match was treated as the sole test for identification.

Federal guidance already holds such matches are investigative leads requiring verification. The statute should require that where identity matters, it be confirmed against the credential rather than inferred from a probabilistic match.

Summary of SC-5: Surveillance the public fears is already happening, confirmed by the government itself.[A-000103, A-000104] Location data bought without warrants,[A-000105] facial recognition at ten billion images,[A-000106] millions of warrantless queries of Americans’ communications.[A-000108]

None of it was built on an identity credential, and none of it is governed by anything as strong as the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.

• What government holds today is bought, scraped, and uncertain. Restrictions on identity data have been broken before.[D-000087]

Against that background, this claim adds a better index with possibly better guardrails rather than a new power.

In contrast, a verified credential is exact, and precision makes a large system more accurate and valuable for national security and public safety.

• The law must be written with a closed list of uses, a private right of action, inspectable logs, regular reporting, and a process for accountability. Consequences are not defined as part of this claim’s Q4 | Solution.

SC-6 | The cost and effort are justified.

What the cost side shows:

• Contemporary estimates of a national identity system ranged from $4 billion at minimum to $25-30 billion to establish, plus $3-6 billion a year to operate.[D-000088] A separate estimate put REAL ID implementation at roughly $17 billion, with states bearing the majority.[D-000089]

  Both figures come from organizations opposed to the proposal. We have found no independent or official cost study of a universal requirement built on existing systems.

• The federal agency that would confirm citizenship is already strained. Passport processing ran more than four weeks longer than pre-pandemic in Fiscal Year 2023, driven by record volume and staff shortages, with more than 250,000 hours of overtime,[D-000133] and its modernization plan had defined milestones for 24 of 83 projects as of December 2024.[D-000134] It issued more than 27 million passports in Fiscal Year 2025, its highest year.[N-000136]

• For the individual, the cost is $54 on average for the card,[D-000081] and $75 to $175 total including travel and other possible costs.[D-000032]

What the benefit side shows:

• Lacking a compliant credential already carries a price: TSA charges $45 to a traveler who arrives without acceptable identification.[A-000084] That fee exists because handling a missing or false credential costs money, and the person responsible for the violation is required to pay for it.

• Against those costs sit $12.5 billion in reported fraud losses in one year,[N-000101] and $27.3 billion in estimated identity fraud losses in another.[A-000074] What no source establishes is how much of that a required universal credential would stop. This is noted in the summary of this section.

Options:

• Consider a five-year national effort to update people’s identification in our government systems to remove duplicates, update data to optimum accuracy, add fingerprint and iris scans, and thwart crime.

A national effort at this scale is not unprecedented. More than three million men served in the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1942, the largest peacetime mobilization in American history, with the Department of Labor recruiting, the Army running camps, and each state enrolling under a population quota.[A-000129, A-000130] The recruiting conditions today are not the same as then, during the Depression when unemployment was near 25 percent.

These people and the technology to support them could supplement state motor vehicle staff to serve people through this new identification process for a five year period. The goal is all Americans and approved visitors have completed the process within that timeframe.

Summary of SC-6:

We cannot validate:

• An unbiased estimate of the cost of this claim because currently the only estimate has been made by its opponents.

• The full benefits because current numbers are not limited to the specific problems the credential would address.

• We have confirmed:

• The infrastructure this claim needs already exists and is paid for (SC-7). The marginal cost of a universal requirement is not the cost of building a system. It is the cost of extending one. That is a materially smaller number than the estimates describe,[D-000088] and nobody has calculated it.

• There is an unknown cost for new technology to support the requirements of this claim, and a five year term of temporary staffing to have people complete their initial enrollment.

SC-7 | It can be implemented fairly and uniformly, and the process already exists in multiple states.

It is already built:

• Every state, the District of Columbia, and the five territories issue REAL ID-compliant credentials, certified by DHS.[N-000093]

• The Enhanced Driver’s License has provided federally recognized proof of identity and citizenship since 2009 in five states. In Washington alone 2.26 million people hold one, a third of that state’s cardholders,[A-000127] and the state absorbed 168,000 original applications in a single quarter of 2025 - a 148 percent increase - at about five extra minutes per transaction.[A-000128]

• The national fingerprint index has operated since 1983,[A-000075] and DHS operates a biometric repository of more than 320 million identities alongside it.[A-000140, A-000141]

• REAL ID compliance climbed from 81 percent to above 94 percent in months once enforcement began.[A-000070]

The limits:

• Twenty years elapsed between enactment of REAL ID and enforcement, across repeated extensions.[N-000094] Whatever schedule is the goal, the real one could be longer. It depends on budget and management.

• Implementation met sustained multi-state resistance, and states bore most of the cost. [D-000089]

• States are legislating in opposite directions on the same credential: Nineteen issue them to illegal immigrants,[N-000118] and three have passed laws refusing to recognize those credentials from other states.[D-000121]

• The two-proofs-of-residence requirement excludes people without an address as written.[D-000082] One design choice, an entire population shut out.

• Maine prohibits by statute the use of biometric technology to produce identification documents.[D-000145]

• Two attempts to add a sixth citizenship-confirming state have failed: California’s legislature passed a bill that was vetoed over the tracking risk, and Ohio enacted a law and issued no cards.[D-000132] Each state that does issue one negotiates its own federal agreement, separately audited and separately designated.[N-000137]

• The Supreme Court has ruled the Constitution limits what can be required of a state in the areas of the Fugitive Slave Act (1842), radioactive waste (1992), handgun background checks (1997), and sports gambling (2018).[N-000147]

The Supreme Court has held that Congress cannot compel a state to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program, or reach the same result by directing the state’s own officers - and it added that no case-by-case weighing of burdens or benefits is necessary.[D-000146]

However, the Supreme Court has not ruled on this question where national security or foreign affairs is the federal interest.[N-000147]

Summary of SC-7: The systems exist, are national, and have already absorbed a universal-scale rollout.[N-000093, A-000070, A-000127] Feasibility is not the obstacle. Two other things are.

• The schedule. Twenty years passed between enactment and enforcement of the current REAL ID standard.[N-000094]

• The mechanism. This claim may need Supreme Court review.

What remains open is the path the current standard already used.

• Federal law may preempt state regulation and may condition a state’s ability to regulate on conformity with federal standards.[A-000148]

• Federal authority is strongest where foreign affairs and naturalization are concerned, and a state may not contradict a federal determination of status.[A-000149]

• REAL ID compelled no state and still reached 94 percent compliance,[A-000070] because the requirement fell on the person, not the state.

A state may decline to participate. Its credentials then do not satisfy the federal standard, and its residents must still obtain one under federal law - the requirement of this claim can still reach every adult. Q4 | Solution must be written that way.

IV. Common Scenarios

• You already have a REAL ID. Nothing changes until renewal, when the credential would record citizenship status as well as identity. This is most adults in America - more than 94 percent of travelers already carry a compliant document.[A-000070]

• You already have a passport. The expensive step is done - the federal government has already determined you are a citizen. What remains is biometric enrollment, because U.S. passports record no fingerprints.[N-000135]

• You have never held identification. You need a birth certificate to apply, and in some places, you need a photo ID to get the birth certificate.[D-000083] The cost is the one established under SC-4: $54 for the card, $75 to $175 all in.

  Cost to the person: Real, and front-loaded. Cost to the state: Fee waivers and one-time enrollment support for those who meet a standard of need. Costs can be offset by higher driver’s license fees or other state fees.

• You have no address. The federal standard requires two proofs of principal residence.[D-000082] As written, you cannot comply. This is not a burden that money alone fixes; it requires a different rule. A solution also increases the need for biometric identity confirmation.

  Cost to the person: Total exclusion, absent a change in the law. Cost to the state: An alternative verification path, which several states already operate for other purposes.

• Your card expires. A duty to maintain implies a moment of non-compliance. What follows from that moment is a Q4 | Solution question, and this claim proposes consequences only for failure to maintain - not police procedure. Q1 | Meaning, Section VI states that boundary.

• You are here on a visa and stay past ninety days. You cross the threshold in Q1 | Meaning, Section V and must obtain an American credential recording your status and its term. DHS recorded 538,548 overstay events in one year,[N-000100] so this scenario is not rare.

• You are already enrolled twice. Some people are, innocently and otherwise. Resolving those cases is more straightforward when there is a process in law for biometric confirmation of identity (Section II).

• Your state refuses to participate. One state already prohibits biometric identification by statute.[D-000145] Its credentials would not satisfy the federal standard, and its residents would obtain a federal credential instead. The state is not compelled and its residents are not excluded.

V. Who Feels This Law

VI. Impact Conclusion

• Here is our conclusion regarding the impact should this claim become law:

• It is reasonable to expect meaningful improvement in national security and public safety from enacting this claim, especially as technology advances. However, we could not find an estimate of how great the benefits may be.

• There is a significant cost for new technology and staffing to implement this claim as an upgrade to the REAL ID or EDL system, or a pairing of two systems, such as REAL ID and passports. We could not find an estimate based on how this claim is written.

• A person without an address cannot satisfy the two-proofs-of-residence requirement as written.[D-000082] This requires a solution, or solution options for states to choose.

• Implementation details of this claim, including cost and timeframe, are dependent on the federal system or systems chosen to update.

• There are two possible legal paths for implementation of this claim: (1) Federal mandate to states, which the Supreme Court’s rulings appear to foreclose, though no case establishing that rule has involved national security or foreign policy;[D-000146, N-000147] or (2) Federal mandate to citizens, the path the current standards have already used.[A-000148]

• This claim does not change what government may collect or how it may use it. However, the claim, in its final form as law, is an opportunity for citizens to specify reasonable limits, reporting, and accountability that protect rights while enabling national security and domestic law enforcement to do their jobs.

We encourage you to consider our proposed Q4 | Solution.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution ┃Summary

The dirt in that part of Mississippi is red. In the summer of 1946, a sixteen-year-old boy stood on it looking down into an open blue coffin.

The young man inside was his older brother Clyde, who had gone off to fight in Germany and had come home with a Purple Heart and a fistful of combat decorations. He was a young man of good character, valor, and love. Yet, he had discovered on arriving that none of it purchased him a single inch of standing in his own hometown.

On a Saturday evening that summer, when the deputy marshal’s club came at him from behind a second time, Clyde caught it in his hand, and the marshal stepped back and shot him twice in the stomach. He died a few hours later, in his younger brother’s arms.

The boy standing over the coffin was John Perkins, a young man who had already been handed too many burdens to carry.

His mother had died of pellagra when he was seven months old - malnutrition, which is the polite way of saying that she starved. His father had walked away. He was raised by a grandmother in a sharecropping family that spent most of the year in the fields, which meant that school happened when it could. For John, it stopped happening somewhere around the third grade.

The next year his family scraped together the money to put him on a train to California, because they had a reasonable fear that whoever killed Clyde might come looking for the brother who watched him die. John went, and he went with a vow that he would never set foot in Mississippi again.

Have you ever been hurt so badly that you made a vow like that? Most, if not all, of us have. It’s often a reason people give up on God or another relationship that did not meet your expectations. Sometimes this type of vow is healthy, even necessary. Other times, new information or experiences may lead you to reconsider.

In the case of young John Perkins, his vow seemed reasonable and wise. Most of us would have done the same and kept it.

The life he was entitled to keep

California gave him what Mississippi never would. He arrived with a third-grade education, found work in a foundry, learned the trade quickly, and became a skilled laborer and a union representative - which is a remarkable sentence when you consider that the man doing the representing could barely have read the contract when he started.

He married Vera Mae Buckley in June of 1951, was drafted, served in Okinawa, came home, and began building the ordinary and hard-won life of a grateful man who had climbed out of something dark.

In 1957 his three-year-old son Spencer came home singing “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” and it touched John Perkins. Spencer invited his father to church and John Perkins came to faith.

John Perkins had everything he may have wanted - a loving wife, son, career, and safe community. Yet, love can challenge us to do things we never thought we would.

By 1960, John and Vera Mae had a wonderful life and thousands of miles between them and everything that had ever been done to them.

That is the year they moved back to Mississippi.

Why go back?

That’s my first thought. How about you?

John Perkins did not go back because the situation had improved. It had not. He did not go back because he had received assurances. There were none.

He went back because in California he had been sitting with Black teenagers from the South who were locked up and in trouble. He considered where every one of them came from, and concluded that the trouble had a source and somebody had to go to it.

He also believed, plainly and without embarrassment, that God had told him to go. Those were not two reasons. They were facts that led him to believe he had to step into the arena, because if he did, he would make a difference - and he would not be alone. He believed God would be there every moment.

It was not a welcome decision. Vera Mae did not want to go. Neither did their children, who were happy in California. It wasn’t John Perkins’ first choice either. They had a good income, good friends, standing in their community, and a church they loved.

In the summer of 1960, they went anyway.

Lots of people do the right thing when the odds are in their favor. That’s not courageous good character. It’s simple math.

Courageous good character is when you run the numbers, know there’s risk - even significant danger - and you go anyway because if you don’t, then who? If not now, then when? It’s not about a destination you’re hoping to reach, but a purpose you’re living for.

There are times - not every situation - where you need to have grit, stay in the game long enough to make a positive difference. Other moments in life call us to return to a game we had every right to quit and apply what we’ve learned to achieve something significant for the common good.

Our standard in the Simple Liberty movement constantly asks us to assess information and decisions against three standards: Find the best way - is it? Do the right thing - is it? Everyone matters - is this best for the common good?

Someone can convince themselves the first two standards have been met, but then fail the third. History is littered with people who won their argument by grinding others into submission rather than submit to truth and the greater good.

One thing that sets John Perkins apart is he never let go of the third, and his past may have tempted him more than once to do so.

What he built

When they got there, much of the town turned out to greet them, mainly because nobody who had ever managed to get out of that place had come back.

He did not go back to make speeches, though he could have. He went back and built things.

Voice of Calvary Ministries began in 1962 and grew into a Bible institute, a leadership development center, a thrift store, and a health center. Later came housing, a co-op, adult education, tutoring for children whose parents worked the same fields his grandmother had worked.

In 1967 two of the Perkins children walked through the doors of Mendenhall’s previously all-white high school as its first Black students, which tells you something about what the family was willing to spend, and which of them was doing the spending.

He did not send money into that community from a safe distance. He moved his wife and his children into the danger and stayed.

Brandon

In February of 1970, students associated with his work were arrested on false charges and held in the jail at Brandon, in the next county over. John Perkins drove there to post their bail.

The officers were waiting for him. Deputy sheriffs and highway patrolmen forced a fork up his nose and down his throat, beat him to the floor, and kicked him in the head, ribs, stomach, and groin. They made him mop up his own blood.

He survived the night, and in the months that followed the strain produced a heart attack and ulcers so severe that surgeons removed two-thirds of his stomach.

My first instinct: Disgust, anger, judgment, desire to see those bullies get severe legal consequences. Appointed to serve the common good, yet they violated their community.

But this post isn’t about me.

What did John Perkins do after that? Certainly, it’s reasonable to leave Mississippi then, right?

He said afterward that when he saw what hate had done to the men who beat him, he could not hate them back - he could only pity them. He leaned on his faith and refused to allow hate to do to him what it had already done to them.

Jesus only gave one new command - “…love one another; as I have loved you, so you must love one another; by this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

He was teaching his closest students, yet felt the need to repeat his lesson three times in three sentences.

John Perkins got it. His refusal to hate was not weakness, or declining to fight, since he spent the next fifty years filing lawsuits and organizing and pressing on voting rights, equal pay, hiring, and the treatment of prisoners.

It was a man refusing to let the evil that was done to him determine the kind of man he would be. He chose his character over his grievance, and he chose it while he was still bleeding.

He was not the first to choose this. Dr. King had walked it ahead of him, and so had ordinary people of every heritage for over one hundred years.

For instance, while John Perkins lay recovering, a white doctor sat beside his bed and read to him, and would not leave until he had fallen asleep. Nobody wrote that doctor’s name into the history books. He simply showed respect, kindness, and love to a man his neighbors would have left alone.

Courageous good character, quietly exercised, is the glue that has often held this country together.

Credentials welcome character

In the last decades of his life, that third-grade dropout received honorary doctorates from nineteen colleges and universities, the first of them from Wheaton. He advised five United States presidents. Four schools founded programs bearing his name, and a rock band wrote a song about him that reached number one on a national chart in 2009.

A sharecropper’s boy who never finished the third grade ended up with more doctorates than most faculty lounges, and he collected every one of them without ever sitting for a single exam.

He also never asked for one. He was busy.

The band, for the record, called their song “The Sound (John M. Perkins’ Blues).” Perkins had spent his life insisting that love is the final fight. Somebody was listening.

Character does not chase credentials. Credentials, eventually, come looking for character.

Think Back.

Remember a time when you had courageous good character.

Maybe you defended someone… Told a truth nobody wanted to hear, and did it kindly... Refused to be pressured to do something wrong… Treated someone well even though they were mean… or simply did the right thing knowing only God would notice.

Relive it. Savor it - humbly, not with unhealthy pride.

Build on it.

What if we changed first?

John Perkins changed first.

How about we follow his lead?

Most of us are not being asked to go back to our Mississippi. We are being asked to go back to a marriage that has gotten hard, a church that disappointed us, a neighborhood we have written off, a school board meeting we quit attending, a relative we stopped speaking to, a community that no longer resembles the one we grew up in.

We do not control others - how they process information and experiences, or the decisions they make, words they speak, and actions they take.

But we can make our own decisions, as John Perkins did. He thought back, considered the present, prayed about the future, and chose a calling more than an opportunity.

The change point in America is not politicians, billionaires, or others in our ruling class.

It’s people like you and me - the ones our Constitution put in charge.

So, the first question is what John Perkins may have asked himself - What can I change that will make me the best possible person I can be?

Are we willing to change first? If so, then how?

• Courageous good character is needed in America today.

• There is no fear in courageous good character. There is discernment.

• There is no anger, hate, or bullying in courageous good character.

• John Perkins joined our Founders in showing a better way, along with Dr. King and scores of others.

What would happen in your life if you chose to be a person of courageous good character - starting now?

The Seven Daily Disciplines

Everything in the Simple Liberty people’s movement rests on three values and nine virtues, and those values and virtues express themselves day to day in seven disciplines.

1. Faith and Purpose - Live from a higher source of meaning, truth, and calling, so that love and joy remain strong in any circumstance.

John Perkins had his life redirected by his young son’s invitation on a Sunday morning, and lived afterward from a source higher than self-interest.

2. Integrity - Do what is right when no one is watching, and live out the goodness of what you claim to believe.

John Perkins moved back to Mississippi - where he felt called to make a difference - when staying in California was honorable, defensible, and free.

3. Common Good - Invest kindly in what strengthens families, communities, and the nation rather than self-interest.

John Perkins invested in the common good rather than his personal wealth - a health center, thrift store, co-op, and training center to serve others.

4. Justice and Compassion - Defend what is right while caring about the dignity and needs of others, gently holding the line whether you are powerful or powerless.

John Perkins spent fifty years fighting for what was right, while refusing to hate people like the men who nearly killed him.

5. Faithful Relationships - Build trust through loyalty, humility, and forgiveness, even when it requires faithfulness and patience for years.

John Perkins was loyal to Vera Mae for nearly three-quarters of a century, and had a lifetime of building trust across every line - Black and white, North and South, rich and poor - the connected community of a healthy America.

6. Excellence - Do ordinary things well, with the self-control to prepare carefully and master the details that are often overlooked.

John Perkins advanced a third-grade education to a skilled trade, then into leadership, and a focus on honorably serving the less fortunate.

7. Legacy - Live as a grateful good steward, who peacefully passes freedom, character, opportunity, and responsibility to the next generation.

John Perkins left institutions that outlived him, and thousands of ordinary citizens - like you and me - still doing the work he started.

Courageous good character prevails is the first common value of Simple Liberty. The three virtues that support it build on one another.

• Faith determines how you process information and experiences.

• Truth is what is factually real, and faith shapes whether you are willing to receive it.

• Integrity is how you live out your faith and what you determine to be true.

March 2026

John M. Perkins died on March 13, 2026, in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of ninety-five. He is buried in the New Hebron red dirt where he began.

On March 5, his daughter Elizabeth sat beside him, took his hand, and sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” As she sang, he squeezed her hand.

Later that day, Vera Mae told him she loved him and thanked God for the years they had been given, and he answered her by locking eyes with her and holding her hand.

Eighty years earlier, a sixteen-year-old boy stood over a blue coffin on red dirt and swore he would never go back.

He went back. He built. He forgave. He stayed.

He finished holding her hand.

One thought to leave with you. Do not demand courageous good character of others until you’ve dedicated yourself to it first.

Your challenge this week.

Name the one person who did the most to shape your character in good ways. If that person is living, call them this week and thank them - mention a specific memory of how they modeled good character and encouraged it in you.

If that person is gone, tell somebody else about them - pay it forward, water the seed, so the memory keeps healing and helping others.

If this helped you think back, share it with someone you care about.

Next we discuss Faith - where courageous good character begins, and how a commoner with nothing at all decided what was true.

We can do this.

Think Back.

Sources

• Primary Source - John M. Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down (Regal, 1976). His own account. Chapter 1 tells Clyde’s death in New Hebron in the summer of 1946 and John’s departure for California.
  https://archive.org/details/letjusticerolldo0000perk

• Research - Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans (2017). It documents the physical violence and social humiliation Black veterans faced despite their hope that military service would bring equality - which establishes Clyde’s death as a pattern rather than an aberration.
  https://eji.org/reports/targeting-black-veterans/

• History - Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House, 2010), on the Great Migration that carried a frightened seventeen-year-old to California.
  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190696/the-warmth-of-other-suns-by-isabel-wilkerson/

• Reference - Mississippi Encyclopedia, “Perkins, John M.,” for the return to Mississippi and the shape of the work he built there.
  https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/john-m-perkins/

• News - Mississippi Today, “Civil rights veteran John Perkins dead at 95” (March 13, 2026), for his death and the family’s account of his final week, including Elizabeth’s song and Vera Mae’s last words.
  https://mississippitoday.org/2026/03/13/civil-rights-veteran-john-perkins-dead/

• Reflection - John M. Perkins, One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race (Moody, 2018), his late word to a country still arguing with itself.
  https://www.moodypublishers.com/one-blood/

• “Love is the final fight” - his own words, quoted by his family in his obituary, Johnson Funeral Home, Prentiss, Mississippi.
  https://johnsonfuneralhomems.com/obituaries/dr-john-m-perkins/

Hi!

The Simple Liberty Movement is not about me. However, because I founded it, it’s polite to introduce myself.

About 40 years ago, I had a vision that’s only gained clarity in time: America is in trouble because powerful people - our ruling class - are unwilling to do what’s right. Their focus is on staying in power and increasing their wealth.

Every four years I’ve hoped for a presidential candidate who is committed to the common good. They’ll find the best way, do the right thing, and make decisions that demonstrate everyone matters equally.

Unfortunately, every four years I’ve been disappointed. Today, things are worse than ever. Left unchecked, America will soon no longer be free. It’s simply the truth. Everything dies when it is not nurtured and protected. Our nation is a great one - but throughout history, other great nations have fallen when they abandoned their founding values.

The only hope is for commoners - ordinary citizens like us - to lead our nation out of this pit.

We - just ordinary citizens - are fortunate:

1. Our Constitution puts us in charge through elections. But people of good conscience must know the issues and vote.

2. Our Constitution and founding documents established the greatest nation for the common good - ever. But citizens of good character must steward it.

Our battle is first with ourselves. As common citizens, we have been too passive, which has allowed our ruling class - politicians, billionaires, and bullies - to exploit our nation.

Why did I wait 40 years to start this movement? Good question.

I was long on vision, conviction, and aptitude 40 years ago, but short on skills. So, I spent the last four decades building them - coaching leaders for 20 years, training thousands of people in leadership, hiring, and culture, writing five books, hosting more than 300 podcast episodes.

None of it made me special - but all of it taught me that everyday Americans, united as a team, can drive this nation to a better place.

Simple Liberty is a nonpartisan movement where regular citizens work together, respectfully, to solve our nation’s problems. We all agree America has problems. Together, ordinary citizens can confirm the facts, provide the reasoning, and propose viable solutions that are best for the common good.

Simple Liberty is restoring trust in the truth - real facts, real people, real solutions.

Please avoid getting caught up in personalities and media hype. Turn it off. Instead, focus on an issue you care about. What does it mean? What evidence explains it? How is it impacting people? And what’s the best solution for the common good? This is what we do at Simple Liberty.

Our work develops solutions that keep a free people free. Then, you can:

1. Understand an issue and its viable solution that serves the common good.

2. Have the facts to support polite discussion.

3. Engage effectively with your elected officials on the issues you care about.

The road ahead is tough. But history shows that’s when America is at its best.

Are you with me?

We can do this.

Sincerely,

David Russell

CEO & Founder

Simple Liberty Foundation

P.S. You can call me Dave, David, Russ, Russell, or Coach. I only ask that you address me in a nice tone of voice. :)

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Q1 | Meaning

Before casting a ballot, every voter must (1) present a government-issued photo ID and (2) provide a signature that officials verify against the voter’s registration record. Two checks, at the moment of voting, in person and by mail. No state requires both today, so this claim is stricter than any current law. The Constitution assigns its enactment to state legislatures and Congress - not the president.

Q2 | Evidence

Every fact in this claim’s registry links to its end source - the statute, court record, database, or study itself - so readers can check us. Listing a fact does not mean we endorse it as true: We verify the lane and that each source states what we summarize. Our conclusions appear in Q3 and Q4.

Affirming: 15 facts, 31 source links.

Dissenting: 18 facts, 28 source links.

Neutral: 31 facts, 68 source links.

Total: 64 facts, 127 source links.

Q3 | Impact

Voter fraud is real, and courts have proven it. Confirmed fraud is also rare - the actual total is unknown. The danger is that in a close election, even a small amount can change the result.

The rules and processes for managing elections are different in every state, and technology is making it cheaper and easier to fake an identity every year. Even the official counts of how many Americans are registered disagree by tens of millions.

Large majorities of Americans in both parties call this requirement reasonable. The burden on honest voters is real but limited, and it can be managed: IDs can be free, mistakes can be fixed, and fair rules can be written - several states have already proven it. What remains falls on a small share of voters, and clear communication to them matters as much as the law itself.

When we started, two questions had no answers. Now they do:

1. What’s the cost of these programs? State records show the cost ranges from under one million to about twenty-five million dollars per state.

2. Does a strict ID law - by itself - increase public trust in elections? Studies conclude the answer is no. Thus, our proposed law requires the state to measure public trust after every election and publish the results.

Related Claims

This claim verifies identity at the moment of voting. Its full effect depends on companion claims, each receiving its own review:

1. Mail-in ballots must meet the same identity-verification standards as in-person voting (Claim #04-003-003).

2. Accurate voter rolls must be maintained (Claim #04-003-004).

3. All voters should be required to re-register to vote (Claim #04-003-005).

4. At all times, citizens must have a real, current, government-issued photo ID (Claim #01-004-001, Citizenship).

Q4 | Solution

The facts support this claim. It should become law - with the safeguards the evidence demands built into it:

1. A free photo ID for anyone who needs one;

2. No eligible voter turned away - a provisional ballot and a ten-day fix-it window;

3. Help with hidden costs for those in financial need;

4. Tribal IDs accepted as issued;

5. Direct communication to affected voters;

6. Signature safeguards with human review before any rejection;

7. The voter never pays - IDs are free, and support programs are funded by a small driver’s-license fee increase;

8. Built-in public reporting; and

9. Enactment only by state legislatures or Congress.

The full report contains our proposed Voter Verification Act - a complete draft for a law written in plain language, published for education and public discussion.

We provide this information, so citizens of good conscience may:

1. Understand this issue and a viable solution that serves the common good.

2. Have the facts to support polite discussion.

3. Consider applying this knowledge to engage effectively with their elected officials on this type of law.

Read the Full Report

Q1 | Meaning explains what the claim means. Q2 | Evidence holds all 64 facts with 127 live links. Q3 | Impact tests each of the six sub-claims. Q4 | Solution presents our proposed solution for the common good including a draft law, and the path forward.

Follow the links below - and judge the evidence for yourself.

Forward this to others.

If you are a Member, please comment.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

What Is Best for the Common Good?

Evidence is noted in [ ]

I. Recap

Q1 | MEANING

This claim proposes a two-factor law of election administration: Before casting a ballot, every voter must (1) present a government-issued photo ID and (2) provide a signature that officials verify against the voter’s registration record. It covers the moment of voting - in person and by mail - and it is stricter than any current state law.

Q2 | EVIDENCE

Our registry holds 62 facts: 15 affirming, 18 dissenting, and 29 neutral. Every fact links to its end source so you can check it yourself. For each fact we verified two things: (1) Its lane, and that the source actually states what we summarize. (2) How much weight each fact deserves is the reader’s judgment - and our conclusions are in Q3 and Q4.

Q3 | IMPACT

The six sub-claim results, in one line each:

• SC-1 Fraud happens - rare, but it can decide a close race.

• SC-2 Safeguards are uneven state to state, and technology is making them weaker.

• SC-3 The fix’s measured effect is modest; signature checks on mail ballots work best.

• SC-4 The burden on honest voters is real, lands on specific groups, and can mostly be designed away.

• SC-5 Public support is high and repeated; costs run in the millions per state.

• SC-6 Fair versions already exist; only states or Congress can enact it.

UNKNOWNS

Answered by research since our first draft:

1. What these programs cost states to run - largely resolved by other states’ records.[N-28, N-29] Modern cost data is still thin - the records we have put costs in the single-digit to low-double-digit millions per state.

2. Whether passing the law raises public trust - research finds it has not, by itself.[D-18] Our answer: Build measurement into the law (see Section 10 of the draft law).

Still open:

1. No American election has ever tested the two checks together - photo ID plus signature.

2. Real counts of who has ID - every number we have is a survey estimate or one state’s court count.

3. How accurate signature checking is at the polls - today’s data covers mail ballots only.

4. Whether these requirements scare off would-be cheaters before they try - the big study measured caught fraud, not prevented fraud.

II. Solution

OBJECTIVE: What’s best for the common good?

America belongs to all of its citizens. Whatever your origin, faith, party, or politics - if you are an eligible American citizen, your vote is your equal share in this country, and this claim exists to protect that share.

Think of a home that every citizen co-owns. When decisions are made about that home, every co-owner gets a vote - and confirming that the person at the table is actually a co-owner takes nothing from any of them. It protects each owner’s equal share from being decided by someone who owns no part of the home at all.

The Supreme Court long ago called the vote ‘preservative of all rights’ - the one right that protects every other. We agree, and we add what the Court’s cases assume: Voting is not only the most important right of American citizens; it is also our most important responsibility.

Protecting the right and honoring the responsibility are the same work. Every safeguard in this claim exists for both reasons at once: So every eligible citizen can vote, and no ineligible vote cancels one. (Evidence N-30 | SC-5, and Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/356/)

Americans need to be confident our elections are fair, the vote count is accurate, and only citizens with the right to vote can participate.

1. Requiring photo ID and a signature match when voting is reasonable because it is consistent with other activities in our society, such as purchasing liquor and boarding a commercial flight.

2. Some will note that voting is a right, while those activities are not. True - the right belongs to every eligible citizen. That is why identity must be confirmed: To make sure it is the citizen, and not an impostor, who exercises it.

3. If ID is required for less important activities, then full confirmation of identity at the time of voting - our most important civic act - is more than validated.

The facts support that the financial and time burden for virtually all Americans is low, and there are cost-effective ways to help those with a true need for assistance to meet this requirement.

Our verdict: The facts support this claim. It should become law - with the safeguards below built into it.

WHAT THE LAW MUST INCLUDE

The evidence dictates how this law must be written. Every requirement below comes from the record, and each points to the section of the draft law that delivers it:

1. A free photo ID for anyone who needs one - courts upheld the laws that included it and struck down the one that charged a fee.[A-10, D-14, A-11] (Section 6, 9)

2. No eligible voter turned away - a provisional ballot and a fix-it window for anyone who forgets or lacks ID.[N-7, N-8, N-6] (Section 5)

3. Help those with true needs with the hidden costs - the documents, travel, and time that make a “free” ID cost $75 to $175.[D-17, D-14] (Section 6)

4. Accept tribal IDs as issued - one design mistake shut out an entire community.[D-13] (Section 6)

5. Over-communicate to voters - North Carolina proved a law can keep scaring voters away even after it is gone, if nobody tells them.[D-9] (Section 7)

6. Signature safeguards - allow up to three active reference signatures on file, AI - and if needed - human review before any rejection, and prompt notice with a chance to fix it, because signatures change with age and illness.[N-25, N-6, D-16] (Section 8)

7. Funding that never touches the voter - free IDs paid for by a modest driver’s license fee increase, with budgets adjusted for inflation.[N-28, N-29, D-14] (Section 9)

8. Proof it works - built-in public reporting and confidence measurement, because research shows passing the law does not raise trust by itself.[D-18] (Section 10)

9. Enacted the only legal way - by state legislatures for their elections, and by Congress for federal elections - ideally in harmony for the common good. Never by executive order.[N-10, N-19, N-24] (Section 11)

III. The Draft Law

THE VOTER VERIFICATION ACT

Section 1 - Name. This law may be called the Voter Verification Act.

Section 2 - Why This Law Exists. The enacting body finds that:

1. Confirmed voter fraud is rare, but in a close election even a small amount can change the result, and at least one congressional election has been overturned for ballot fraud.

2. The rules for verifying voters differ in every state, and technology is making identity fraud cheaper and easier every year.

3. Large majorities of Americans, across both parties, support requiring photo ID to vote.

4. Courts have upheld photo ID laws when the ID is free and voters can fix mistakes - and struck them down when they cost money.

5. The burden of this law falls hardest on specific groups of honest voters, so the protections in this law are not optional extras - they are the reason it is fair.

Section 3 - Definitions. In this law:

1. “Photo ID” means a current identification card issued by a federal, state, or tribal government that shows the voter’s photograph. Examples include driver’s licenses, passports, and IDs issued by federally recognized tribes, accepted as issued - including those showing a post office box where homes have no street address.

2. “Signature verification” means comparing the voter’s signature to the signatures on file in the voter’s registration record.

3. “Cure period” means the ten days following election day; the voter is given this grace period to resolve their ID or signature problem with their local election officials.

Section 4 - What Voters Do at the Polls. To receive a regular ballot, a voter:

1. Presents a current government-issued photo ID; and

2. Signs the poll record; and

3. Technology confirms the photo ID and signature; if either is rejected, a trained election official reviews to make the final decision.

Section 5 - No Eligible Voter Turned Away. A voter who cannot meet Section 4 votes a provisional ballot. The ballot counts if the voter presents ID and confirms their signature within the cure period, in person at a government voter-registration office or a state mobile unit staffed by government employees. Election officials must tell the voter, before leaving the polling place, exactly how and where to cure.

Section 6 - Free ID for Anyone Who Needs One. The state shall provide the following free services to residents who meet their financial standard of need:

1. Documents to verify a resident’s citizenship, such as birth certificates;

2. Reasonable number of mobile ID units , staffed by government employees, serving communities far from voter registration offices to meet with citizens closer to their homes; and

3. Accept current IDs issued by federally recognized tribes.

Section 7 - Telling the Voters. Before the first election under this law, the state shall run a statewide education program and send direct, individual notice to every registered voter who has no ID on file. If any part of this law is later changed or suspended, the state shall notify those same voters again.

Section 8 - Signature Rules. Signature verification under this law requires:

1. Up to three active reference signatures on file for each voter, verified at a state-designated election registrar location;

2. Multiple signatures may be provided by a voter whose signatures have changed from age, disability, or illness - in advance of an election - at a state-designated election registrar location, and maintained on their record thereafter;

3. Review of signature and photo ID by election software that may include AI, and if rejected, then by a trained election official - no rejection by technology alone; and

4. Prompt notice and a cure opportunity for every rejection at the time of rejection - up to ten days past an election day.

Section 9 - Who Pays. No voter shall ever be charged for a government-issued photo ID. No voter who meets a state’s qualification of financial need shall pay for the documents this law requires to obtain a government-issued photo ID. Free IDs and the programs in Sections 6 and 7 are funded by a modest increase in the standard driver’s license fee, with appropriations adjusted for inflation each year.

Section 10 - Proof It Works. Election results are already public record. After every general election, the state shall also publish: The number of provisional ballots, cure rates, and signature rejections by county; and, within 90 days of the election, the results of an independent survey of public confidence in elections. The people deserve to see whether this law delivers.

Section 11 - Who Implements, and When. The chief election official and the motor-vehicle agency implement this law together. It takes effect at the first regularly scheduled general election held at least one year after enactment.

Section 12 - Laws This One Replaces. The enacting body shall list the laws and bureaucratic rules that become unnecessary when this law passes, and repeal them.

Section 13 - If a Court Strikes Part. If any part of this law is held invalid, the rest remains in effect.

IV. Implementation

Simple Liberty Foundation is an educational organization. We research, publish, and teach. We do not lobby or endorse candidates. This research is a first step in public education on this claim. The next steps are:

1. Engage with individuals - Simple Liberty Members and others - in civil dialog on the facts of this Claim, to sharpen the key details.

2. Study and engage with organizations that came before us with similar proposals to further consider their research and results.

3. Publish, as education for the people and their representatives:

   1. The model law above, refined by what we learn;

   2. A constitutional analysis - how federal and state responsibilities align best for the common good;

   3. What the law specifically requires, who implements it, and on what schedule; and

   4. A list of laws that become unnecessary - and can be repealed - if it passes.

Whether to act on this education belongs where it always has: With the people and those they elect. Therefore, once this process is complete, the people must drive change with their elected representatives.

V. Status

In public discussion. (July 2026)

VI. Solution Dependencies

This claim checks a voter’s identity at the moment of voting. Other claims must update our laws for full election integrity to be achieved. Three closely relate to this claim:

1. Accurate voter rolls must be maintained. About one in eight voter registrations is wrong. Often it is simply outdated or a duplicate,[A-8] but it can also be an ineligible voter. And the system of confirming citizenship and voting rights at state DMVs and other registrars is flawed - it can be subject to bribes and other corruption, resulting in registering aliens as American citizens. The process of registering citizens and voters must be improved to maintain public safety and trust in our election process. This claim will be researched by our team as Claim #04-003-004 under the topic of Election Integrity.

2. All voters should be required to re-register to vote. New Jersey showed why: A software error put 6,600 noncitizens on the voter rolls, about 400 of them voted, and the error stayed hidden for up to three years.[N-26] Re-registering with a current ID clears out old errors and fraud in one step and renews the integrity of our voter data. This claim will be researched by our team as Claim #04-003-005 under the topic of Election Integrity (to confirm ineligible, duplicate, and deceased registrants are removed).

3. At all times, citizens must have a real, current, government-issued photo ID. Millions of adults may lack one, based on survey estimates.[D-3] Meanwhile, fake IDs have become cheap[A-13] and AI is making identity fraud easier.[A-14] This is primarily a national security and citizenship issue - and is not driven to increase government’s ability for citizen surveillance. This claim will be researched by our team as Claim #01-004-001 under the topic of Citizenship.

How they combine for the common good:

1. The process of confirming citizenship and voter registration is flawed. As digital and AI fraud grows, it must be strengthened while reasonably achieving a balance of accuracy, efficiency, and simplicity.

2. Re-registering with a current ID clears out the fraud and renews integrity to our voter data.

3. Maintaining a current ID is logical, reasonable, and important for public safety. It is also consistent with laws to show current ID when purchasing liquor, flying on commercial airlines, and other activities.

These pending claims address real needs and have the potential to significantly simplify and increase trust in our election process. We will give each its own full review.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Who And What Does This Claim Impact?

Evidence is noted in [ ]

I. Introduction

Q1 | Meaning explained what this claim means. Q2 | Evidence listed the facts. Below we explore what happens if the claim becomes law - who and what are affected, and how much. Our proposed solution is provided in Q4 | Solution.

We run every claim through four tests to consider its impact:

1. Who and What are affected?

2. How Big is it, based on the evidence?

3. Options: What can be done to limit the negatives and increase the positives?

4. Projections: What happens over time?

NOTE: Evidence is referenced in [] - e.g., Evidence A-8 is listed as [A-8] and can be found on the Evidence page.

We trust evidence in this order:

1. Laws and court records

2. Official records and audits

3. Peer-reviewed studies

4. Surveys – estimates, not counts (see “Is That a Fact?”)

5. Claims from advocacy groups

II. Solution Dependencies: What This Claim Needs to Work

This claim checks a voter’s identity at the moment of voting. There are other claims to update our laws for full election integrity to be achieved. Three closely relate to this claim of requiring government-issued photo ID and signature verification when voting:

1. Accurate voter rolls must be maintained. About one in eight voter registrations is wrong. Often it is simply outdated or a duplicate [A-8], but it can also be an ineligible voter.

   1. The scale is national: State rolls carry more than 211 million names, while only about 174 million Americans say they are registered - a spread of some 37 million.[N-31]

   2. The system of confirming citizenship and voting rights at state DMV or other registrars is flawed - it can be subject to bribes and other corruption, resulting in registering aliens as American citizens.

   3. The process of registering citizens and voters must be improved to maintain public safety and trust in our election process. This claim will be researched by our team as Claim #04-003-004 under the topic of Election Integrity.

2. All voters should be required to re-register to vote. There is clear evidence that the use of fake IDs and AI to commit fraud is increasing, and there is voting by non-citizens.

   1. To restore faith in our election process - that only qualified citizens are voting - all voters should be required to re-register. This claim will be researched by our team as Claim #04-003-005 under the topic of Election Integrity (to confirm ineligible, duplicate, and deceased registrants are removed).

3. At all times, citizens must have a real, current, government-issued photo ID. Millions of adults may lack one, based on survey estimates.[D-3] Meanwhile, fake IDs have become cheap[A-13] and AI is making identity fraud easier.[A-14].

   1. This is primarily a national security and citizenship issue - and is not driven to increase government’s ability for citizen surveillance. This claim will be researched by our team as Claim #01-004-001 under the topic of Citizenship.

How they combine for the common good:

1. The process of confirming citizenship and voter registration is flawed. As digital and AI fraud grows, it must be strengthened while reasonably achieving a balance of accuracy, efficiency, and simplicity.

2. Re-registering with a current ID clears out the fraud and renews integrity to our voter data. Cleaning the rolls also cuts costs: Every mailing and notice program otherwise pays to reach tens of millions of names that should not be there.

3. Maintaining a current ID is logical, reasonable, and important for public safety. It is also consistent with laws to show current ID when purchasing liquor, flying on commercial airlines, getting a driver’s license, and other activities.

These pending claims address real needs and have the potential to significantly simplify and increase trust in our election process. We will give each its own full review.

III. Testing Each Sub-Claim

SC-1 | Preventable fraud occurs, is likely undercounted, and could affect the outcome of a close election.

Fraud is real:

1. More than 1,400 cases ended in convictions or other official findings.[A-1]

2. One congressional election was thrown out over an absentee-ballot scheme.[A-3]

3. A man forged his dead wife’s signature on a mail-ballot request – the signature check caught him.[A-4]

4. A voter allowed to vote without ID turned out to be fraudulently registered.[A-5]

5. 1982 Chicago: An estimated 100,000 fraudulent ballots; 63 people convicted.[A-7]

But it is rare:

1. The same database holds only about 10 cases of someone pretending to be another voter at the polls - out of billions of votes.[D-1]

2. It holds 41 noncitizen voting cases over about 50 years.[D-2]

3. Georgia’s audit: 20 noncitizen registrations, 9 votes, out of 8.2 million voters.[N-20] Utah: 1 and 0, out of 2 million.[N-21] Ohio: 521 flagged, 1 charged.[N-23]

What we found. Fraud is real - it has even flipped an election.[A-3] Some surely goes uncaught; the database’s own authors say they only count what was caught.[A-2] But when states searched hard, they found very little.[N-20, N-21, N-23]

Conclusion: Election fraud is rare, but in a close election, even a little can decide it. The Supreme Court said the same.[A-6]

SC-2 | Current safeguards are insufficient, and digital technologies including AI are making them more so.

The rules are uneven:

1. 36 states ask for some ID; 14 ask for none.[N-1]

2. 32 states check mail-ballot signatures; 10 plus DC only check that the envelope was signed.[N-2, N-3]

3. No-ID states rely on a signature and the voter stating their name and address.[N-4] Federal law covers only certain first-time voters.[N-9]

4. Registration runs on the honor system – you swear you are a citizen, and that is it.[A-9] The rolls have many errors.[A-8]

5. Even the nation’s two official counts of registered voters disagree - about 174 million by survey, over 211 million on state rolls.[N-31]

And the safeguards are getting weaker:

1. $15 fake IDs fooled a company’s automated ID check.[A-13]

2. The government warns that AI-made fake documents are fooling banks.[A-14]

What we found. Two problems: (1) The safeguards are uneven, and they are getting weaker as technology improves; and (2) Whatever the fraud rate is today, cheating is getting easier and cheaper.

SC-3 | Requiring photo ID and signature verification will reduce ineligible voting.

What supports it:

1. Signature checking caught a forged mail ballot before it counted – the clearest proof that verification works.[A-4]

2. A bipartisan commission led by Jimmy Carter and James Baker recommended photo ID paired with free IDs.[A-11]

3. The systems needed to check voters already exist and run every election.[N-2, N-5, N-25]

The hard part:

1. The biggest national study found strict ID laws had no measurable effect on turnout - and no measurable effect on fraud either.[A-15]

What we found. The measured proof that this law would reduce illegal voting may be modest, but no state currently requires both government-issued photo ID and signature verification - so no data exists. Also, we did not investigate the depth and reliability of signature verification systems. These systems may or may not need improvement.

The strongest proven tool is the signature check on mail ballots.[A-4, N-2] This sub-claim leans mostly on SC-1 (rare fraud can flip close races) and SC-2 (cheating is getting easier) - on prevention and public trust - more than on measured results. Our Q4 | Solution must weigh that.

SC-4 | Eligible voters would not be wrongly blocked.

Who could be blocked:

1. A survey estimates over 49 million adults lack a current, unexpired license with their current name and address[D-3] (survey estimate, n=2,386, weighted).

2. A court counted 608,470 registered Texas voters – 4.5% – without qualifying ID under one strict law.[D-6]

3. Those without ID are more often elderly, low-income, minority, or student voters.[D-4, D-5, D-10–D-12]

4. North Dakota’s street-address rule shut out tribal IDs that list PO boxes.[D-13]

5. Some studies found turnout dropped 2–3 points after strict laws.[D-7, D-8] In North Carolina, voters without ID kept staying home even after the law was struck down – because nobody told them it was gone.[D-9]

6. Signatures change with age and illnesses like Parkinson’s – risking rejected ballots.[D-16]

On the other side:

1. The biggest national study found no turnout drop at all, for any racial group.[A-15]

2. The Supreme Court ruled Indiana’s law was not a heavy burden for most voters.[A-10]

Options:

1. Free IDs are now standard – courts push states to provide them. Indiana’s law survived because IDs were free;[A-10] Georgia’s survived only after a court called its fee an illegal poll tax.[D-14]

2. The Carter-Baker plan added outreach and mobile issuance for those who need help.[A-11]

3. Fix-it (“cure”) windows are written into the law,[N-7, N-8] and officials compare several signatures on file.[N-6, N-25]

4. Design rule learned the hard way: Accept tribal IDs as issued.[D-13]

5. If Companion Claim #3 passes, nearly everyone will already have an ID (Section II).

Projections - what is left:

1. The hidden costs a free ID does not fix - getting a birth certificate, travel, and time off work. That is what the poll-tax ruling was really about.[D-14]

2. Voters whose signatures have changed are only as protected as the fix-it process is good.[D-16, N-6]

3. Confusion. North Carolina proved a law can keep scaring voters away even after it is gone, if nobody tells them.[D-9] Clear communication changes the outcome.

What we found. There is a burden, but it is limited and can be overcome by targeted support for those with real need. For example, states can provide free IDs, fix-it steps, fair rules, and our Companion Claims help level the playing field.

It is illogical and unrealistic to claim 100% of eligible citizens will ever register to vote and vote in every election. Our Q4 | Solution focuses on what’s best for the common good.

SC-5 | The cost and effort are justified.

Public support is strong and repeated:

1. 84% support photo ID (Gallup).[N-11] 83% (Pew).[N-12] 77% called it “reasonable” - the actual word in Rasmussen’s question.[N-13]

2. Three polling companies, different methods, same answer, within months.

3. Voters in 15 states approved citizenship-voting measures, averaging 73% yes.[N-17]

The cost side:

1. One court struck down an ID fee as an illegal poll tax - so the ID must be free.[D-14] Only a small share of voters - roughly five percent or less - would ever need one provided.[D-3, D-6]

2. State records put implementation costs in the single-digit to low-double-digit millions per state.[N-28, N-29] Most figures are from 2005-2011, so modern cost data is thin (see Section VII).

3. Studies find no consistent link between strict ID laws and higher voter confidence.[D-18]

What we found. The public strongly believes this is reasonable. Other states’ records now give us a price range, though the figures are dated.[N-28, N-29] “Worth it” is a Q4 | Solution decision. Q3 | Impact’s finding: The support is solid; the cost is bounded but dated.

SC-6 | The requirement can be implemented fairly and uniformly.

It can be done fairly:

1. The Constitution gives this job to state legislatures and Congress.[N-10]

2. Indiana is the tested model: Photo ID, free IDs, a 10-day fix-it window - upheld by the Supreme Court.[N-7, N-8]

3. Even the leading opposition group supports “commonsense” ID rules, pointing to Rhode Island and Michigan as fair ones.[A-12]

The limits:

1. 36 different state systems today.[N-1]

2. Courts blocked the president’s attempt to change election rules alone,[N-19] and a promised national voter-ID order has been announced twice and never issued.[N-24]

3. A state court struck down New York City’s local overreach in the other direction.[N-16]

4. North Dakota shows how one small design choice can unfairly shut people out.[D-13]

What we found. Fair versions already exist - Indiana, Rhode Island, and Michigan prove it.[N-7, N-8, A-12] Making it the same everywhere is the hard part, and there are only two legal paths: State by state, or Congress. Not the president.[N-10, N-19, N-24]

Fairness requires an efficient system with boundaries - the system supports those who truly need it, not the irresponsible. Systems have succeeded when free IDs, fix-it steps, and reasonable inclusive rules were built in, and failed where they were not.[D-13, D-14]

IV. Common Scenarios

1. You forgot your ID. You vote a provisional ballot. It counts if you show your ID within the fix-it window - 10 days in Indiana.[N-7, N-8]

   1. The cost to the voter: A second trip. Longer windows and remote fixes make it easier.[N-6]. Who’s fault? The voter.

   2. The cost to the state: Minimal.

2. You do not have an ID at all. The ID itself can be free - courts push states to do that.[A-10, D-14, A-11] What is left: The citizen’s paperwork, the ride, and the time. If Companion Claim #3 passes, this problem goes away (Section II).

   1. The cost to the voter: Completed in advance of registering to vote or as part of it. Support systems can eliminate the cost for the truly destitute.

   2. The cost to the state: None - standard procedure.

3. You do not have a ride. Two different problems. (a) A ride to get and keep an ID - that is this law’s burden, and mobile ID vans can fix much of it.[A-11] (b) A ride to the polls on Election Day - that exists with or without this law, so it does not count against this claim.

   1. The cost to the voter: States can eliminate this cost for those with a true need.

   2. The cost to the state: Limited, but must have boundaries to avoid exploitation.

   3. Transportation based on need will be addressed separately under Claim #04-005-006.

4. You vote by mail. How ID and signatures get checked for absentee ballots is handled in a separate claim: Mail-in ballots must meet the same identity-verification standards as in-person voting (Claim #04-003-003).

   1. This claim covers in-person voting. Today’s mail baseline: 32 states check signatures; 10 plus DC only check the envelope.[N-2, N-3] Mail rejection-rate disparities[D-15] move to that claim.

V. Who Feels This Law - Group by Group

VI. Leftover Evidence

Every evidence entry is accounted for. The ones not used above have new homes:

1. D-15 (mail-ballot rejection disparities) - moves to Claim #04-003-003 (mail-ballot identity verification).

2. N-5 (states that require ID copies with mail ballots) – becomes Q4 | Solution design material.

3. N-14, N-15, N-16 (citizenship-voting rules) - stay as boundary markers in Q1 | Meaning Section XIII and seed Citizenship claims.

VII. What We Still Do Not Know

Answered by research since our first draft:

1. What these programs cost states to run - largely resolved by other states’ records.[N-28, N-29] Modern cost data is still thin.

2. Whether passing the law raises public trust - research finds it has not, by itself.[D-18] Our Q4 | Solution includes measuring it.

Still open:

1. No American election has ever tested the two checks together - photo ID plus signature.

2. Real counts of who has ID - every number we have is a survey estimate or one state’s court count.

3. How accurate signature checking is at the polls - today’s data on signature accuracy covers mail ballots only.

4. Whether these requirements scare off would-be cheaters before they try - the big study measured caught fraud, not prevented fraud.

VIII. Impact Summary

Voter fraud is real, and courts have proven it. Confirmed fraud is also rare - the actual total is unknown. The danger is that in a close election, even a small amount can change the result.

Meanwhile, the rules and processes for managing elections are different in every state, and technology is making it cheaper and easier to fake an identity every year.

Even the official counts of how many Americans are registered to vote disagree by tens of millions.

The fix this claim proposes - photo ID plus signature verification - is one that large majorities of Americans in both parties call reasonable. No state requires both checks today, so its full effect has never been measured.

The burden on honest voters is real but limited, and can be managed: IDs can be free, mistakes can be fixed, and fair rules can be written - several states have already proven it.

What remains falls on a small share of voters - and for them, clear communication matters as much as the details of the law itself.

Two questions have now been researched: (1) Program costs - other states’ records put them in the single-digit to low-double-digit millions per state; and (2) Public trust - studies find that passing ID laws has not, by itself, raised it. Our Q4 | Solution builds on the first and answers the second with measurement.

The table below sums up the findings for each sub-claim.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Why Is This Claim True?

Welcome!

This section is the factual registry for Claim #04-003-002. Its focus is facts, not arguments: Every entry states one verifiable fact in a single sentence, cites the end source - the statute, court record, database, study, or dataset where the fact terminates - and identifies the sub-claim(s) it bears on.

Arguments and interpretations remain in Q1 - Meaning (Sections IX–X) and Q3 - Impact, cited to the parties who make them; no opinion piece is cited here as if it were a fact.

The three lanes - Evidence is numbered as follows:

• A-# | Affirming - facts a proponent would introduce to support this claim.

• D-# | Dissenting - facts an opponent would introduce to discredit this claim.

• N-# | Neutral- statutes, court holdings, official counts, polls, and facts both sides might introduce because it can be considered as both affirming and dissenting.

Evidence numbering

• Evidence numbers are permanent in our system - once assigned, a number is never reused or reassigned. New facts take the next available number in their lane.

• Sources can be repeatable - one source may support multiple entries in any lane.

• Every fact must include a link to the source; a fact that cannot be traced to a primary source does not enter the registry.

• Sub-claim tags use SC-1 through SC-6, matching Q1 - Meaning (full), Section II.

Known gap - Published polling from typically trustworthy sources test the photo-ID component only. We have not identified a poll testing this claim’s proposal to implement a two-factor process of identity confirmation.

Sub-claim key

• SC-1 preventable fraud occurs, is likely undercounted, and could affect a close election.

• SC-2 current safeguards are insufficient, and advances in digital technologies – including AI – are making them more so.

• SC-3 the two-factor requirement will reduce ineligible voting.

• SC-4 eligible voters would not be wrongly blocked.

• SC-5 the cost and effort are justified.

• SC-6 it can be implemented fairly and uniformly.

DISCLAIMER

Listing evidence in one of these three lanes does not mean we endorse it as true. We verify two things: The lane - Affirming, Dissenting, Neutral - and that each source states the fact we summarize. Upon close inspection, you may find the evidence claimed is strong, mixed, or weak.

It would imply bias for us to exclude perspectives that claim a reasonable factual basis, so we include the full breadth. However, in reality, studies rest on assumptions that can be biased; surveys are estimates, not full counts; and people on all sides of an issue do research with the intent to prove themselves right.

Follow the links and judge the evidence for yourself. We provide our conclusions in the Q3 - Impact and Q4 - Solution sections of an issue.

Affirming Facts (A)

A-1 | SC-1 - The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database documented 1,412 proven instances of election fraud as of January 2023, each ending in a criminal conviction, civil finding, or overturned election, and the database has continued to grow since.

Source: Heritage Election Fraud Database, electionfraud.heritage.org (Jan. 2023 update).

Links:

https://electionfraud.heritage.org/

Search: https://electionfraud.heritage.org/search

1,412-case count: https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/election-fraud-database-tops-1400-cases

A-2 | SC-1, SC-2 - Heritage states its database is a sampling, not a comprehensive count, because it cannot include fraud that goes undetected or unprosecuted.

Source: “About the Election Fraud Database.”

Links: https://electionfraud.heritage.org/about

https://www.heritage.org/article/about-the-election-fraud-database

A-3 | SC-1 - The 2018 election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was overturned and a new election ordered after a state investigation found an absentee-ballot trafficking operation run by political operative McCrae Dowless.

Source: North Carolina State Board of Elections order (Feb. 2019); Heritage database entry.

Links: Press release: https://www.ncsbe.gov/news/press-releases/2019/02/25/state-board-unanimously-orders-new-election-9th-congressional-district

Board order with findings: https://dl.ncsbe.gov/State_Board_Meeting_Docs/Congressional_District_9_Portal/Order_03132019.pdf

A-4 | SC-1, SC-3 - A Florida man forged his deceased wife’s signature on a mail-ballot request form and was charged with vote-by-mail fraud after election staff caught the fraud during a routine voter-roll check.

Source: Heritage database entry and underlying court record (2021).

Links: https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-man-mail-in-ballot-dead-wife-voter-fraud-charge

https://lawandcrime.com/2020-election/florida-man-asked-for-mail-in-ballot-on-behalf-of-dead-wife-said-he-was-testing-if-voting-system-worked-deputies/

A-5 | SC-2 - A Minnesota voter who cast a ballot without identification - because an acquaintance vouched for her identity – later pleaded guilty to registering in more than one precinct.

Source: Heritage database entry and Minnesota court record.

Link: https://electionfraud.heritage.org/case/201659

Item 3 on Minnesota SOS Elections & Voting, Register on Election Day webpage: https://www.sos.mn.gov/elections-voting/register-to-vote/register-on-election-day/

A-6 | SC-1 - The Supreme Court in Crawford found the risk of voter fraud “real” and stated that it “could affect the outcome of a close election.”

Source: Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008).

Link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/

A-7 | SC-1 (historical) - A federal investigation of Chicago’s 1982 election estimated roughly 100,000 fraudulent ballots were cast, producing dozens of convictions.

Source: U.S. Attorney investigation records, cited in Heritage, “Voter Fraud.”

Link: Database case entry: https://electionfraud.heritage.org/case/200224

Full documentation with primary-source footnotes: https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/where-theres-smoke-theres-fire-100000-stolen-votes-chicago

Overview (63 convictions): https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/heritage-explains/voter-fraud

A-8 | SC-2 - A 2012 Pew study found approximately one in eight U.S. voter registrations was inaccurate, outdated, or duplicative, with about 1.8 million deceased individuals and nearly 3 million people registered in more than one state.

Source: Pew Center on the States, “Inaccurate, Costly, and Inefficient” (Feb. 2012).

Link: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2012/02/14/inaccurate-costly-and-inefficient-evidence-that-americas-voter-registration-system-needs-an-upgrade

A-9 | SC-2 - Voter registration relies on self-attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury; election offices do not routinely verify citizenship against immigration databases at the point of registration.

Source: Bipartisan Policy Center, “Four Things to Know about Noncitizen Voting” (Feb. 2026).

Links: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/

Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-104publ208/pdf/PLAW-104publ208.pdf

NVRA of 1993 (DOJ) - the law requiring the citizenship attestation under penalty of perjury: https://www.justice.gov/crt/national-voter-registration-act-1993-nvra

USCIS SAVE agency search tool (documents the 23 states with SAVE agreements for citizenship verification): https://www.uscis.gov/save/about-save/save-agency-search-tool?type_of_agency%5B%5D=5&benefit_category%5B%5D=97&benefit_category%5B%5D=98&items_per_page=10

NCSL, “Legislative Approaches to Ensuring Only Citizens Vote” (jury-dismissal data as a verification source): https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/legislative-approaches-to-ensuring-only-citizens-vote

A-10 | SC-4, SC-5 - The Crawford Court held that the inconvenience of obtaining Indiana’s free photo ID did not impose a substantial burden on most voters’ right to vote.

Source: Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008).

Link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/

A-11 | SC-3, SC-6 - The bipartisan 2005 Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, recommended a uniform photo-ID requirement paired with free IDs and affirmative state outreach.

Source: Carter-Baker Commission, “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections” (Sept. 2005).

Links: Original 2005 report (archived): https://capitalresearch.org/app/uploads/baker-carter-commission-2005-election-doc.pdf

Background: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/carter-baker-commission-16-years-later

A-12 | SC-6 - A 2016 Brennan Center report by Myrna Perez identified Rhode Island’s and Michigan’s voter ID laws as examples that increased security without disenfranchising eligible voters.

Source: Brennan Center, “Election Integrity: A Pro-Voter Agenda” (2016).

Links: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/election-integrity-pro-voter-agenda (Can view, but PDF is behind a Scribd paywall.)

Referenced at: https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/voting-elections/voting-reform/voter-id

A-13 | SC-2 - In February 2024, journalists documented an underground service, OnlyFake, selling realistic fake-ID images for $15 – advertised as neural-network generated at up to 20,000 documents per day – including a fabricated California driver’s license, complete with a signature, that passed the automated identity check of a major cryptocurrency exchange.

Source: 404 Media, “Inside the Underground Site Where ‘Neural Networks’ Churn Out Fake IDs” (Feb. 2024), 404media.co. (Later forensic analysis questioned how much AI the service actually used; the cost, speed, and successful verification bypass are documented regardless.)

Links: https://www.404media.co/inside-the-underground-site-where-ai-neural-networks-churns-out-fake-ids-onlyfake/

AI-claim: https://resistant.ai/blog/onlyfake-generative-ai-fraud

A-14 | SC-2 - The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert in November 2024 reporting an increase in suspicious-activity filings describing deepfake media - including identity documents created or altered with generative AI – used to circumvent identity verification at financial institutions.

Source: FinCEN, Alert FIN-2024-Alert004 (Nov. 13, 2024), fincen.gov.

Links: Official alert PDF: https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FinCEN-Alert-DeepFakes-Alert508FINAL.pdf

Press release: https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-issues-alert-fraud-schemes-involving-deepfake-media-targeting-financial

A-15 | SC-4 - A nationwide analysis of voter files from 2008–2018 found strict ID laws had no significant negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any racial group.

Source: Cantoni & Pons, “Strict ID Laws Don’t Stop Voters” (NBER Working Paper 25522, later published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics)

Link: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf.

Dissenting Facts (D)

D-1 | SC-1 - A Brennan Center review of the Heritage database found only 10 cases of in-person impersonation at the polls – the fraud type polling-place photo ID addresses – across the billions of votes the database’s time span covers.

Source: Brennan Center, “Heritage Fraud Database: An Assessment” (2017).

Link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/analysis-heritage-foundations-database-undermines-claims-recent-voter

D-2 | SC-1 - The same review (D-1) found 41 cases of noncitizens registering, voting, or attempting to vote over roughly five decades.

Source: Brennan Center, “Heritage Fraud Database: An Assessment” (2017).

Link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/analysis-heritage-foundations-database-undermines-claims-recent-voter

D-3 | SC-4 - More than 49 million American adults do not possess an unexpired driver’s license bearing their current name and address.

Source: Brennan Center / University of Maryland CDCE national survey (2024), brennancenter.org. (Survey estimate, n=2,386, weighted.)

Links: Figure stated at: https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/voting-elections/voting-reform/voter-id

Survey data (Brennan/UMD CDCE, June 2024): https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%202023%20survey%20Key%20Results%20June%202024%20updatev2.pdf

Weighted estimate from CDCE Survey data: https://cdce.umd.edu/feature/new-cdce-survey-shows-millions-lack-id-voter-id-laws-spread-more-states

D-4 | SC-4 - Approximately 11 percent of U.S. citizens in 2006 - about 21 million people - do not possess government-issued photo identification.

Source: Brennan Center survey, “Citizens Without Proof” (2006), cited in ACLU, “Oppose Voter ID Legislation – Fact Sheet.”

Links: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-without-proof

2006 Figures confirmed in 2011 post: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-without-proof-stands-strong

D-5 | SC-4 - The same survey found up to 25 percent of Black voting-age citizens lacked current government-issued photo ID, compared with about 8 percent of white voting-age citizens.

Source: Brennan Center, “Citizens Without Proof” (2006).

Links: New State Voting Laws: Barriers to the Ballot? (Sept. 28, 2011): https://brennancenter.org/analysis/new-state-voting-laws-barriers-ballot

2006 Figures confirmed in 2011 post: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-without-proof-stands-strong

D-6 | SC-4 - A federal court found that 608,470 registered Texas voters - approximately 4.5 percent - lacked identification qualifying under the state’s 2013 photo-ID law.

Source: Veasey v. Perry, 71 F. Supp. 3d 627 (S.D. Tex. 2014).

Links: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914f18aadd7b0493497ba31

Finding recounted in GAO-14-634: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-14-634.pdf

D-7 | SC-4 - A Government Accountability Office study found turnout fell by an estimated two to three percentage points more in Kansas and Tennessee after those states adopted strict ID laws than in comparison states.

Source: GAO, “Issues Related to State Voter Identification Laws,” GAO-14-634 (Sept. 2014).

Link: Footnote 101, page 70: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-14-634.pdf

D-8 | SC-4 - Strict voter ID laws taking effect after Crawford reduced presidential-election turnout by more than 2.5 percentage points, while laws passed earlier had negligible effects.

Source: Academic study in Brennan Center research compilation, “Research on Voter ID.” (Confirm author/journal at link before freeze.)

Link: Compilation with links to each underlying study: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/research-voter-id

D-9 | SC-4 - Stanford researchers found North Carolina’s strict ID law reduced turnout among voters lacking qualifying identification, and the effect persisted even after the law’s repeal.

Source: The Durable Differential Deterrent Effects of Strict Photo Identification Laws (Nov. 10, 2019). Published version of record (paywalled): Grimmer & Yoder, Political Science Research and Methods 10(3): 453–469 (2022), Cambridge Core

Link: Full text with methodology (Stanford Democracy & Polarization Lab): https://stanforddpl.org/papers/grimmer_yoder_2019_voterids/ or https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0qvfoisdch7yai6zoz8tq/voter_id_deter.pdf?rlkey=tkap0c10igy0jykmbhf5107vc&e=1&dl=0

D-10 | SC-4 - Texas voters who could vote only through the court-ordered Reasonable Impediment Declaration – lacking qualifying ID – were disproportionately Black and Latino.

Source: Jones, Cross & Granato, “The Texas Voter ID Law and the 2016 Election” (Apr. 2017).

Link: Full study PDF: https://www.uh.edu/hobby/voterid2016/voterid2016.pdf

D-11 | SC-4 - Administrative-records research in Michigan found voters of color were more likely than white voters to arrive at the polls without qualifying identification.

Source: Academic study in Brennan compilation (2022).

Link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/research-voter-id

D-12 | SC-4 - In Rhode Island, turnout declined among citizens without driver’s licenses after the state’s ID law took effect, and minority citizens were considerably less likely to hold licenses.

Source: Administrative-records study in Brennan compilation (2022).

Link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/research-voter-id

D-13 | SC-4, SC-6 - North Dakota’s requirement of a physical street address on qualifying ID excludes many tribal-land residents whose IDs list PO boxes.

Source: Brennan Center, “The Impact of Voter Suppression on Communities of Color” (2022); related federal litigation.

Link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/impact-voter-suppression-communities-color

D-14 | SC-4, SC-5 - A Georgia federal court in October 2005 held the state’s photo-ID law an unconstitutional poll tax and undue burden, forcing the state to revise the law before a later version was upheld.

Source: Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups, 406 F. Supp. 2d 1326 (N.D. Ga. 2005).

Links: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/commong-cause-georgia-v-892777754

Ruling documented at: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/policy-brief-voter-identification

D-15 | SC-4 - Mail ballots cast by voters of color were rejected at higher rates than those of white voters in Georgia’s 2020 primary, with similar findings in Georgia’s and Florida’s 2018 general elections.

Source: Brennan Center research reports (2020); companion academic studies.

Link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/impact-voter-suppression-communities-color

D-16 | SC-4 - Signatures change with age, injury, stroke, and conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, and some states require a physician’s attestation before accepting a ballot whose signature no longer matches the file.

Source: Michael J. Fox Foundation, “Know Your Rights: Voting by Mail and Signature Verification” (Oct. 2020).

Link: https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/know-your-rights-voting-mail-and-signature-verification

D-17 | SC-4, SC-5 - A Harvard Law School institute report calculated that obtaining a nominally free voter ID typically costs the individual $75 to $175 in underlying documents, travel, and time - between 7 and 136 times the inflation-adjusted poll tax outlawed in 1964.

Source: Richard Sobel, “The High Cost of ‘Free’ Photo Voter Identification Cards,” Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, Harvard Law School (2014).

Link: https://hls.harvard.edu/today/free-voter-ids-costly-harvard-law-report-finds

D-18 | SC-5 - Peer-reviewed research has found no consistent relationship between strict photo-ID laws and voter confidence: No correlation between ID requirements and beliefs about fraud frequency (2008), no evidence that passing strict ID laws reduced belief in fraud (2016), and no significant effect on citizens’ belief that elections were fair (2019) - with the strongest measured driver of confidence being whether the voter’s preferred candidate won.

Source: Ansolabehere & Persily, Harvard Law Review 121 (2008); Stewart, Ansolabehere & Persily, Stanford Law Review 68 (2016); Cantoni & Pons, NBER Working Paper 25522.

Links: https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ansolabehere_persily.pdf

Stanford Law Review (2016): https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/08/6_-_Persily_-_Stan._L._Rev.pdf

National study (NBER): https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25522/w25522.pdf

Summary (MIT Election Lab): https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/voter-identification

Neutral Record (N)

N-1 | SC-2, SC-6 - As of October 2025, 36 states required identification at the polls – 24 of them photo ID, with exceptions – while 14 states generally required no ID on Election Day, and the 36 vary widely in accepted documents and no-ID procedures.

Source: Ballotpedia, “Voter identification laws by state” (Oct. 2025); Votebeat (Sept. 2025).

Links: https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state

NCSL Voter ID report: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id

N-2 | SC-2, SC-3 - Thirty-two states conduct signature verification on returned absentee/mail ballots.

Source: NCSL, “Table 14: How States Verify Voted Absentee/Mail Ballots” (2025).

Link: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-14-how-states-verify-voted-absentee-mail-ballots

N-3 | SC-2 - Ten states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands verify only that the ballot envelope is signed, without comparing the signature to the file.

Source: NCSL, Table 14 (2025).

Link: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-14-how-states-verify-voted-absentee-mail-ballots

N-4 | SC-2 - States without documentary ID requirements typically have voters sign a poll roster, mandate comparison of those signatures against registration records, and verbally confirm name and address.

Source: NCSL, “Voter Verification Without ID Documents” (2025).

Link: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-verification-without-id-documents

N-5 | SC-3, SC-6 - Some states verify mail ballots by alternative methods – a copy of an identification document, a witness signature, or notarization – rather than signature comparison.

Source: NCSL, Table 14 (2025).

Link: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-14-how-states-verify-voted-absentee-mail-ballots

N-6 | SC-4, SC-6 - States with signature verification maintain cure processes allowing voters to correct a rejected signature, with windows and methods varying by state.

Source: NCSL, “Table 15: States with Signature Cure Processes” (2025).

Link: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-15-states-with-signature-cure-processes

N-7 | SC-6 - In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s strict photo-ID law in 2008, and the decision remains the controlling precedent for photo-ID statutes.

Source: 553 U.S. 181 (2008).

Link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/

N-8 | SC-4, SC-6 - Indiana’s law requires a government-issued photo ID whose name conforms to the registration record, provides free state IDs, and gives provisional voters ten days to present valid ID.

Source: Indiana Code; Indiana Secretary of State, in.gov/sos/elections.

Links: https://www.in.gov/sos/elections/voter-information/photo-id-law/

Statute confirmed in NCSL Voter ID report: https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id

Ten-day cure rule in Crawford: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/553/181/

N-9 | SC-2 - The Help America Vote Act requires identification only from first-time voters who registered by mail, and accepts a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document as alternatives to photo ID.

Source: 52 U.S.C. § 21083 (HAVA § 303).

Link: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/21083

N-10 | SC-6 - The Elections Clause assigns the times, places, and manner of congressional elections to state legislatures subject to congressional override, and Article II assigns the manner of appointing presidential electors to state legislatures.

Source: U.S. Const. art. I, § 4; art. II, § 1.

Links: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-4/

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1/

N-11 | SC-5 - Gallup found in October 2024 that 84 percent of U.S. adults favored requiring photo identification at the voting place, including 98 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of independents, and 67 percent of Democrats.

Source: Gallup (Oct. 2024). (Survey estimate, weighted.)

Link: https://news.gallup.com/poll/652523/americans-endorse-early-voting-voter-verification.aspx

N-12 | SC-5 - Pew Research Center found in August 2025 that 83 percent of U.S. adults favored requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.

Source: Pew Research Center (Aug. 2025). (Survey estimate, weighted.)

Link: Via fact brief linking the Pew data: https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/voter-id-americans-support-wisconsin-poll-photo-identification/

Corroborating coverage: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/americans-support-photo-id-vote-democrats-oppose-save-america-act-rcna259549

N-13 | SC-5 - Rasmussen Reports found in January 2025 that 77 percent of likely voters called requiring photo ID to vote a reasonable election-integrity measure.

Source: Rasmussen Reports (Jan. 2025). (Survey estimate, n=1,229 likely voters, ±3 points, weighted.)

Link: https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration_second_term/election_integrity_77_favor_voter_id

Linked from: https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/voter-id-americans-support-wisconsin-poll-photo-identification/

N-14 | SC-2 - Federal law since 1996 has explicitly prohibited noncitizens from voting in federal elections, with penalties including imprisonment and deportation.

Source: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; 18 U.S.C. § 611.

Links: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/611

Official public law PDF, IIRIRA, Pub. L. 104-208 (fine and up to one year imprisonment): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-104publ208/pdf/PLAW-104publ208.pdf

8 U.S.C. § 1182 - deportability/inadmissibility for unlawful voting and for falsely claiming citizenship: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182

N-15 | SC-2 - No state allows noncitizens to vote in statewide elections; the District of Columbia and certain municipalities in California, Maryland, and Vermont allow noncitizen voting in some local elections.

Source: Ballotpedia, “Laws permitting noncitizens to vote in the United States” (Mar. 2026); Bipartisan Policy Center (Feb. 2026).

Links: https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/

San Francisco school board voting: https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/09/noncitizen-voting-school-board-san-francisco/

Oakland Measure S (2022): https://ballotpedia.org/Oakland,_California,_Measure_S,_Noncitizen_Residents_Voting_Measure_(November_2022) - with implementation status: https://oaklandside.org/2024/11/01/measure-s-noncitizen-voting-oakland-school-board-election/

Maryland/Vermont municipalities (anchor-specific version of your existing Ballotpedia link): https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States#Details_about_noncitizen_voting_in_local_elections

DC Law 24-242 (the actual statute): https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/laws/24-242

Separate-ballot safeguard in Maryland cities (NPR): https://www.npr.org/local/305/2022/11/09/1135568975/it-feels-very-welcoming-non-citizen-immigrants-on-voting-in-takoma-park

N-16 | SC-6 - New York City’s 2021 law extending local voting to noncitizens was struck down under the state constitution, a ruling the New York Court of Appeals affirmed 6–1 in March 2025.

Source: New York Court of Appeals decision (Mar. 2025); FindLaw (Mar. 2026).

Links: Fossella v. Adams (N.Y. Ct. App., Mar. 20, 2025) documented at: https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States

https://www.findlaw.com/voting/my-voting-guide/can-noncitizens-vote-in-the-united-states.html

The 2022 trial-court ruling that started it (CNN): https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/27/politics/noncitizen-voting-new-york/index.html - your entry’s fact is the 2025 Court of Appeals affirmance; this documents the lower-court stage.

N-17 | SC-5 - From 2018 through 2025, voters approved all 15 statewide constitutional amendments strengthening citizenship requirements for voting, averaging 73 percent support, and six more citizenship measures are on 2026 ballots, including Los Angeles’s November 2026 measure on local noncitizen voting.

Source: Ballotpedia News (July 2026); Spectrum News (June 2026).

Links: https://news.ballotpedia.org/2026/07/08/six-citizenship-voting-measures-on-the-ballot-in-2026-continue-historical-trend/

LA measure: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/ca/california/politics/2026/06/19/los-angeles-non-citizen-voting

N-18 | SC-6 - The SAVE Act, requiring documentary proof of citizenship at voter registration, passed the U.S. House and was pending in the Senate as of early 2026.

Source: Congress.gov, H.R. 22 (119th Congress).

Link: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22

N-19 | SC-4, SC-6 - A March 2025 executive order directed proof of citizenship on the federal registration form, listing passports and citizenship-designating IDs but not birth certificates as acceptable, while roughly half of Americans hold passports; nineteen states sued, courts blocked its major provisions during 2025, and in January 2026 a federal judge permanently blocked the order, finding the president lacks authority to unilaterally alter election procedures.

Source: Executive Order (Mar. 25, 2025); NBC News (Mar. 2025); TIME (Aug. 2025); NBC News (Feb. 2026); U.S. State Department passport data.

Links: Official text: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/28/2025-05523/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-of-american-elections

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-of-american-elections/

Litigation status (CRS): https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11368

Litigation history (19 states, 2025 injunctions): https://time.com/7313626/trump-voter-id-executive-order/

January 2026 permanent block: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-vows-voter-id-requirements-midterms-rcna259018

N-20 | SC-1, SC-2 - Georgia’s October 2024 citizenship audit of 8.2 million registered voters identified 20 noncitizen registrations, of whom nine had voted, most before the state’s 2012 verification upgrade.

Source: Georgia Secretary of State announcement (Oct. 2024), via Bipartisan Policy Center.

Links: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/

The Georgia Recorder report of Raffensperger’s announcement, with the 20-registered/9-voted figures: https://georgiarecorder.com/briefs/georgia-gop-secretary-of-state-reports-audit-found-20-noncitizens-registered-to-vote-out-of-8-2m/

N-21 | SC-1, SC-2 - Utah’s 2025–26 review of more than two million voter registrations found one confirmed noncitizen registration and zero noncitizen votes.

Source: Utah state review (Jan. 2026), via Bipartisan Policy Center.

Links: State of Utah Citizenship Review Process, January 22, 2026: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CNkU8qcrIQ-vYUaE4OyCBqydk5toZAR9/view

https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/utah-reviewed-its-voter-rolls-for-noncitizens/

N-22 | SC-1 - A Bipartisan Policy Center review of the Heritage database identified 77 instances of noncitizens successfully casting ballots between 1999 and 2023.

Source: Bipartisan Policy Center, “Four Things to Know about Noncitizen Voting” (Feb. 2026).

Links: https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/four-things-to-know-about-noncitizen-voting/

77 noncitizen voting instances: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=citizen&state=All&year=&case_type=All&fraud_type=All - NOTE: The article’s footnote 2 gives BPC’s full methodology (scraped Oct. 11, 2024; queries “citizen” and “alien”; manual review to 77)

N-23 | SC-1, SC-2 - Ohio’s Secretary of State flagged 521 potential noncitizen voting cases between 2019 and September 2023, but a journalistic review found only one resulted in a voter-fraud charge, with most flags traced to clerical errors and DMV lag in recording naturalizations.

Source: Ohio Capital Journal, “Ohio Sec. of State LaRose flagged more than 520 cases of noncitizen voter fraud. Only one was legit” (Sept. 27, 2023).

Link: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/09/27/ohio-sec-of-state-larose-flagged-more-than-520-cases-of-noncitizen-voter-fraud-only-one-was-legit/

N-24 | SC-6 - President Trump announced in August 2025 that he would sign an executive order requiring voter ID in all elections nationwide, and renewed the vow in February 2026 - “whether approved by Congress or not” - after the SAVE America Act passed the House; as of this writing, no such order has issued, and a federal court struck down the voter-ID portions of his earlier March 2025 election order as beyond presidential authority.

Source: Fox News (Aug. 30, 2025); Votebeat news analysis (Sept. 8, 2025); NBC News (Feb. 13, 2026).

Links: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-he-require-voter-id-executive-order

Implementation-complexity analysis: https://www.votebeat.org/2025/09/08/trump-executive-order-voter-id-requirement-emergency-power/

February renewal: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-vows-voter-id-requirements-midterms-rcna259018

N-25 | SC-3, SC-6 - Election officials verifying signatures commonly compare the ballot signature against multiple signatures on file - the registration record, prior ballot envelopes, motor-vehicle transactions - so they can account for the evolution of a voter’s handwriting, and best practice pairs verification with prompt notification and a cure process when a signature is rejected.

Source: National Vote at Home Institute, “Increasing Signature Verification.”

Links: https://voteathome.org/signature-verification/

Stanford Law School report: https://voteathome.org/portfolio/stanford-law-school-report-signature-verification-and-mail-ballots-guaranteeing-access-while-preserving-integrity/

N-26 | SC-1, SC-2 - A software flaw in New Jersey’s motor-vehicle system registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 - enrolling applicants even though they answered “no” to the citizenship question - and a preliminary state review found about 400 cast ballots in 2023-2024 elections, with no evidence any race was swayed; the error took a year to fix, was not disclosed until July 2026, and those registered remained on the rolls up to three years before removal began.

Source: Gov. Sherrill announcement (July 21, 2026); NBC News; New Jersey Monitor; WHYY; CBS New York (July 2026). NOTE: Responsibility is contested - the vendor says the state Division of Elections is responsible for verifying eligibility - and a DOJ investigation is open; figures may change.

Links: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/6600-noncitizens-registered-vote-nj-software-error-governor-says-rcna588524

Governor’s press conference: https://newjerseymonitor.com/2026/07/21/governor-software-error-non-citizens-register-vote/

How the glitch occurred: https://whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-motor-vehicle-commission-glitch-noncitizens-registered-vote/

Vendor dispute and DOJ demand: https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/new-jersey-noncitizen-voting-mikie-sherrill-department-of-justice/

N-27 | SC-1, SC-2 - Oregon’s motor-voter system mistakenly registered more than 1,600 people who had not provided proof of citizenship, an error discovered in 2024 and traced to DMV staff mis-selecting document types; state reviews found about 17 of them had voting histories - several legally, having become citizens before voting - with roughly 9 potentially ineligible, and the governor paused automatic registration until an independent audit produced new rules in 2026.

Source: Oregon Secretary of State newsroom (Sept. 2024); AP (Sept. 30, 2024); KOIN (Feb. 2026).

Links: https://apps.oregon.gov/oregon-newsroom/OR/SOS/Posts/Post/dmv-potential-ineligible-voters-improper-registration-records

AP report: https://wreg.com/news/your-voice-your-vote/ap-politics/ap-oregon-dmv-waited-weeks-to-tell-elections-officials-about-voter-registration-error/

Audit and 2026 rule changes: https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/oregon-motor-voter-program-updated-after-1k-people-mistakenly-registered-to-vote/

N-28 | SC-5 - Indiana’s photo-ID law cost about $12.2 million over its first four years - including more than $1.3 million to produce 168,000+ free IDs, nearly $2.2 million in lost card-fee revenue, and $2.2 million in voter education - roughly equal to the state Elections Division’s entire annual budget at the time.

Source: Brennan Center, “The Cost of Voter ID Laws: What the Courts Say” (2011), citing Indiana state estimates; Keystone Research Center (2011).

Links: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/Voter%20ID%20Cost%20Memo%20FINAL.pdf

Keystone Research Center analysis: https://keystoneresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/Cost-of-Voter-ID-Law-to-PA.pdf

N-29 | SC-5 - Official fiscal notes and independent estimates for other states’ voter-ID laws ranged from about $720,000 plus $260,000 recurring (South Carolina) to $5.7 million (Wisconsin), $6 million in year one plus $4 million annually (Missouri), and $18-25 million over three years (North Carolina), with voter-education spending varying from $0.15 to $1.37 per voter.

Source: Brennan Center cost memo and state updates (2011); Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Links: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/update-voter-id-costs-states

Cost memo (PDF): https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/Voter%20ID%20Cost%20Memo%20FINAL.pdf

Education-cost figures: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/truth-about-voter-id-costs

N-30 | SC-5 - The Supreme Court has described voting as “a fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights.”

Source: Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886).

Link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/356/

N-31 | SC-2 - The federal government’s two official counts of registered voters diverge by tens of millions: The Census Bureau’s 2024 survey reports about 174 million Americans saying they are registered (73.6% of voting-age citizens), while the Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 administrative survey of state rolls counts more than 211 million active registered voters (86.6%) - a gap driven by how “registered” is defined and by names states have not yet pruned as duplicate, outdated, or ineligible.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2024” (P20-587, Apr. 2025); U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report (June 30, 2025).

Links: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-587.html

Full EAVS report (PDF): https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/2024_EAVS_Report_508.pdf

EAC report hub: https://www.eac.gov/research-and-data/studies-and-reports

Sub-Claim Cross-Reference Matrix

Legend:

• Built from the sub-claim tags in the registry.

• Three dashes means no direct factual entry in that lane, although indirect facts may be presented in other sub-claims.

• Number in parenthesis indicates number of links for that Evidence number. For instance, A-1 (3) means three links to facts support A-1.

Source Index

Alphabetical list of all sources cited in the registry. Sources are unnumbered; the permanent IDs belong to facts, not sources.

404 Media · ACLU · Ballotpedia / Ballotpedia News · Bipartisan Policy Center · Brennan Center for Justice · Carter-Baker Commission · Charles Hamilton Houston Institute (Harvard Law School) · Congress.gov · Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups (N.D. Ga. 2005) · Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (U.S. 2008) · FinCEN (U.S. Treasury) · Gallup · GAO · Georgia Secretary of State · Harvard Law Review · Heritage Foundation Election Fraud Database · Indiana Code / Indiana Secretary of State · Jones, Cross & Granato (Univ. of Houston) · Keystone Research Center · Michael J. Fox Foundation · MIT Election Lab · NBC News · NBER (Cantoni & Pons) · NCSL · North Carolina State Board of Elections · Pew Center on the States · Pew Research Center · Rasmussen Reports · Spectrum News · Stanford Law Review · U.S. Code (18 U.S.C. § 611; 52 U.S.C. § 21083) · U.S. Constitution · Utah state election review · Veasey v. Perry (S.D. Tex. 2014) · Votebeat · White House (Executive Order, Mar. 2025) · Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

What Does This Claim Mean?

Evidence is noted in [ ]

I. The Claim

This claim proposes a two-factor law of election administration. Before casting a ballot, every voter must (1) present a government-issued identification document displaying the voter’s photograph, and (2) provide a signature that election officials verify against the signature in the voter’s registration record.

The two factors parallel security practice in banking and computing: Something you carry (the ID) and something you do (the signature). Each check exists somewhere in current American election law. The combination - both checks, applied to every voter, at the moment of voting - does not exist in any American state at the time of this writing.

II. The Sub-Claims: What Must Be Proven

The claim currently has six sub-claims. Supporting and dissenting facts for each sub-claim are presented in Q2 - Evidence, and their consequences are discussed in Q3 - Impact.

1. Voter identity fraud that verification can prevent - in-person impersonation and fraudulent mail ballots - occurs, is likely undercounted, and could affect the outcome of a close election.

2. Current safeguards are insufficient, and advances in digital technologies – including AI – are making them more so by lowering the cost and increasing the scale of identity fraud.

3. Requiring government-issued photo ID and signature verification will reduce ineligible voting.

4. Eligible voters would not be wrongly blocked - neither by lack of ID nor by signature mismatch.

5. The cost and effort are justified.

6. The requirement can be implemented fairly and uniformly.

Sub-claims 1-3 assert the problem and the remedy; sub-claims 4-6 assert the absence of unacceptable side effects.

III. The First Factor: Government-Issued Photo ID

A. “Government-issued”

This term excludes all private credentials: Employee badges, membership cards, store accounts. Qualifying documents typically include:

• Driver’s licenses and state-issued ID cards

• U.S. passports

• Military identification cards

• Tribal identification cards (in many, not all, states)

States dispute the edges of this category. Some accept student IDs from public universities (which are government institutions); others exclude them. North Dakota requires a physical street address on the ID, which excludes many tribal IDs listing PO boxes - a point of active litigation and research.[D-13]

B. “Photo”

The photo requirement excludes documents that establish identity or residency without an image: Utility bills, bank statements, paychecks, birth certificates, and Social Security cards.

This exclusion changes existing federal law. Under the Help America Vote Act, a first-time voter who registered by mail may verify identity with a current utility bill, bank statement, paycheck, or other government document showing name and address.[N-000042] This claim replaces that menu with a photo-only standard: Documents that prove where you live would no longer count as proof of who you are.

C. Strict versus non-strict enforcement

What defines a photo-ID law is not the request, but the consequence. Election-law explainers sort ID laws by what happens to a voter who arrives without one:

1. Strict: The voter may cast only a provisional ballot, counted only if the voter presents valid ID to officials within a set period of time.

2. Non-strict: The voter may proceed by signing an affidavit of identity, by signature match, or by a poll worker vouching for them.

The claim’s plain language - “should be required” - points to the strict model. An affidavit alternative could be considered, though it would convert the requirement into a non-strict law.

IV. The Second Factor: Signature Verification

A. How it works

Election officials compare the signature the voter provides against a signature in the registration record, most commonly collected at registration or through the department of motor vehicles. In some states, officials compare against multiple signatures on file so they can account for how a person’s handwriting evolves.[N-25]

In high-volume jurisdictions, software performs a first pass - measuring letter formation, slant, proportions - and flags doubtful matches for human review.

B. Where it is used today

• Thirty-two States conduct signature verification on returned absentee/mail ballots.[N-2]

• Ten states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands verify only that the envelope has been signed, without comparing the signature.[N-3]

• States with no documentary ID requirement typically have voters sign a poll roster and mandate that officials compare those signatures to registration records, checked alongside verbal confirmation of name and address.[N-4]

C. The cure process

When a signature does not match, the voter should receive timely notification and instructions for correcting - “curing” - the discrepancy.[N-6] Cure windows and methods vary by state; some require an in-person visit, others accept a mailed or electronic affirmation.

D. Known limitations

Signatures change - with age, injury, stroke, and conditions such as Parkinson’s disease. Disability advocates note the real concern that a ballot signature may no longer match the one on file, and some states require a doctor’s attestation to resolve it.[D-16]

This cuts both ways in the debate: Proponents cite signature drift as the reason a photo ID must anchor the system; opponents note that layering photo ID on top of signature match removes the fallback that currently protects voters whose documents or signatures are imperfect.

V. “At the Time of Voting”

This phrase locates both requirements at the moment of ballot access - not at registration.

• In-person voters: The polling place, before receiving a ballot.

• Mail voters: Ballot return, meaning the signature on the return envelope plus, under this claim, a copy of photo ID submitted with the application or the ballot.

The registration stage is governed by different proposals entirely (see Section XIII). Keeping the stages distinct is essential to arguing this claim on its own merits.

VI. What the Claim Is Not

Three boundary markers prevent the most common confusions:

1. It is not a registration requirement. Proof-of-citizenship measures such as the SAVE Act operate when a person registers, not when they vote.

2. It is not a citizenship check. A driver’s license proves identity, not citizenship; lawful permanent residents hold them.

3. It is not current law. No state requires both factors of every voter; the claim proposes a change in all American voting.

VII. The Law Today

A. The constitutional allocation

The Constitution assigns election administration to the states first.

1. The Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4) provides that the times, places, and manner of holding congressional elections “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” while reserving to Congress the power to “make or alter such Regulations.”

2. Article II similarly directs each state legislature to determine the manner of appointing presidential electors.

3. Voter qualifications are likewise state-set, bounded by the constitutional amendments barring discrimination by race, sex, poll tax, and age.

Three consequences follow for this claim:

1. The 50-state patchwork below is the system working as designed, not a defect.

2. This claim can be enacted state-by-state or by Congress for federal elections under its Elections Clause power (the route HAVA took).

3. The constitutional text assigns the enactment roles to state legislatures and Congress; it does not mention the president. Whether an executive order can nonetheless impose such a mandate is the live question noted in subsection D.

B. The state patchwork

As of October 2025, 36 states required identification at the polls; 24 of those required photo ID, with exceptions; 14 states generally required no ID on Election Day.[N-1]

The 36 states with ID requirements vary widely on which IDs are accepted and on what happens when a voter lacks one, and enforcement for mail ballots is more confusing still.[N-1]

C. The archetype: Indiana and Crawford

Indiana’s statute is the model strict photo-ID law: a government-issued photo ID whose name conforms to the registration record, with a ten-day cure window for provisional voters.[N-7, N-8]

The Supreme Court upheld it in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), observing that flagrant examples of fraud have been documented throughout the nation’s history and could affect the outcome of a close election.[A-6] Crawford remains the constitutional floor on which every subsequent photo-ID law stands.

D. The federal layer

No federal law imposes a general voting-ID requirement. HAVA touches only first-time mail registrants.[N-9] The rules keep changing: President Trump has promised an executive order making voter ID a national requirement - an assertion of federal power over elections that even many conservatives historically rejected, given that implementation logistics across 36 differing state regimes would be complex.[N-24]

Whether a national mandate can be imposed by executive action, rather than by Congress or the states, is a live constitutional question - but it does not change the meaning of the claim, only the identity of the enacting authority.

VIII. What Fraud Each Factor Targets

The two factors aim at different threats, and this asymmetry drives the debate.

A concrete illustration of the second: A Florida man forged his deceased wife’s signature on a mail-ballot request form; routine signature checks against the voter rolls caught the fraud before a ballot was cast, and he was charged with vote-by-mail fraud.[A-4] Photo ID at a polling place would never have touched that scheme; signature verification did.

This is why the claim’s two-factor structure matters: Each factor covers the other’s blind spot. It is also why single-factor critiques (“impersonation is rare”) and single-factor defenses (“fraud databases prove the need”) both require careful matching of evidence to the factor it actually concerns.

IX. How Proponents Explain the Claim

Sources: Heritage Foundation, America First Policy Institute, the White House.

1. Fraud is real and disenfranchising. Heritage’s Election Fraud Database catalogs proven cases - each one ending in a finding of wrongdoing or an overturned election - and argues that every fraudulent vote effectively disenfranchises an eligible voter.[A-1] Heritage acknowledges that nobody knows the full extent of election fraud, but contends the vulnerabilities in the current system are themselves the problem.[A-2]

2. Security cannot rest on an honor system. Election integrity is essential, and the security of the ballot box cannot be left to a simple honor system; states have a duty to safeguard the process.

3. The everyday-ID analogy. Photo ID is already required to board a plane, drive, open a bank account, and buy age-restricted goods. Voting, which governs all of these, warrants at least equal care.

4. The burden is minimal and curable. Should states provide free IDs to those who cannot afford them, the requirement imposes no material cost.

5. Confidence is a legitimate end in itself. Verification sustains trust in outcomes regardless of how much fraud exists - trust, but verify.

X. How Opponents Explain the Claim

Sources: Brennan Center for Justice, ACLU.

1. The targeted fraud is vanishingly rare. Analyses of the Heritage database itself found only a handful of in-person impersonation cases across billions of votes - a phenomenon less common than being struck by lightning.[D-1]

2. Millions lack the required documents. It is estimated more than 49 million American adults do not possess an unexpired driver’s license with their current name and address, and seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students are especially likely to lack one.[D-3, D-5]

3. “Free” IDs are not free. Obtaining one requires underlying documents (birth certificates cost money), travel to issuing offices, and time off work - costs one federal court analogized to an unconstitutional poll tax.[D-14]

4. The signature factor has its own casualties. Voters whose signatures have changed through age or disability face rejection risks that a second mandatory factor compounds rather than cures.[D-16]

5. Not all ID rules are opposed. The Brennan Center states that it has long supported commonsense voter ID rules - voters should be who they say they are - and objects specifically to laws requiring forms of ID that many eligible Americans do not have.[A-12] The dispute, in other words, is over this claim’s strictness, not over identity verification as a concept.

XI. Public Opinion

The photo-ID component commands rare bipartisan support:

1. Pew Research Center (August 2025): 83% of U.S. adults favored requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.[N-12]

2. Gallup (October 2024): 84% favored requiring photo identification at the voting place,[N-11] including 98% of Republicans, 84% of independents, and 67% of Democrats.[N-11]

3. Rasmussen Reports (January 2025): 77% of likely voters called photo ID a reasonable measure to protect election integrity.[N-13]

No comparable polling isolates the two-factor combination this claim proposes; public support for the added signature mandate is untested.

XII. Scenarios the Claim Must Resolve

1. The forgotten ID. The voter casts a provisional ballot, counted only if valid ID is presented within the cure window - ten days in Indiana.[N-8]

2. The citizen who owns no qualifying ID. Proponents answer: Free state IDs remove the burden.[A-10, A-11] Opponents answer: The underlying documents, travel, and time still cost real money, and the burden falls on those least able to bear it.[D-4, D-14]

3. The voter without transportation. Proponent designs include mobile ID-issuance units and free ID cards - the pairing the 2005 Carter-Baker Commission recommended when it endorsed photo ID.[A-11]

4. The mail voter. Signature verification already governs most mail ballots;[N-2] the claim adds a photo-ID element, presumably a copied or scanned ID with the application or return envelope, as a few states now require.[N-5]

a) For this claim to advance, the details of this process must be specified, including its cure mechanism; otherwise, the claim covers in-person voting only. That process is analyzed under the companion claim Mail-in ballots must meet the same identity-verification standards as in-person voting (Claim #04-003-003).

XIII. Adjacent Issues: Related but Outside the Claim

A. Upstream ID security

The claim’s entire security value depends on the integrity of the ID-issuance process. A fraudulently obtained government photo ID defeats verification at the polls perfectly.

Hardening DMV and passport issuance is therefore a companion reform the claim assumes, but does not contain.

B. Citizenship verification

Federal law - the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 - explicitly prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and no state allows noncitizens to vote in statewide elections.[N-14, N-15]

The genuine movement on this issue is local and runs in both directions:

• As of March 2026, the District of Columbia and certain municipalities in California, Maryland, and Vermont allowed noncitizens to vote in some local elections.[N-15]

• Los Angeles voters will decide in November 2026 whether noncitizen residents may vote in city elections.[N-17]

• New York City’s 2021 attempt was struck down under the state constitution, a ruling the New York Court of Appeals affirmed 6-1 in March 2025.[N-16]

• Meanwhile, from 2018 through 2025, voters approved all 15 statewide constitutional amendments strengthening citizenship requirements for voting, averaging 73% support, with six more citizenship measures on 2026 ballots.[N-17]

Citizenship, however, is verified at registration - the stage the SAVE Act and the 2025 executive order address[N-18, N-19] - making it a companion issue to, not a component of, this claim.

XIV. Conclusion

This claim proposes that every American voter, in person or by mail, verify identity two ways at the moment of voting: A government-issued photo ID and a signature matched to the registration record.

It adopts the strict enforcement model, with provisional ballots and cure periods as the safety valve. It is stricter than the law of any state today, and under the Constitution it could be enacted by the states individually or by Congress for federal elections.

Its validity rests on six sub-claims - that preventable fraud occurs, that current safeguards fail, that the remedy works, harms no eligible voter, justifies its cost, and can be implemented fairly.

Whether each survives the evidence is the work of Q2.

Meaning ┃ Evidence ┃ Impact ┃Solution┃Summary

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P.S. Our thanks to Katie Harbath, the founder of Anchor Change, who provided a more detailed sample disclosure for us to consider. Katie is a consultant, speaker, and writer focused on the intersection of technology and democracy. We encourage you to check out her work.

This is the third post in our Simple Liberty series, and the last of three on the branches our Founders designed to serve us rather than rule us. Posts #1 and #2 took up the Executive and the Legislative.

The pattern was the same in both: Institutions built for the common good, now too often corrupted for personal power, profit, and ruling class advantage. Both parties have done it, over decades, on our watch.

The judiciary suffers the same failing, with one difference: Presidents and members of Congress can be voted out. Federal judges, once confirmed, serve for life. That raises a harder question: How do we keep the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, applying the Constitution as written rather than rewriting it from the bench?

Citizens, not politicians or pundits. Ordinary citizens who show up.

Here are seven questions for our courts:

#1 - What if character mattered most?

What if we confirmed only judges of proven good character, fully committed to applying the Constitution regardless of who appointed them?

Without character at the foundation, structural reform will not hold. The robe carries a responsibility rather than a license. Both parties have appointed judges who ruled against the president who nominated them when the law demanded it, and that is the standard we should require of all of them.

#2 - What if judges applied the law instead of making it?

Congress makes the law, the courts apply it, the president enforces it. Judges who invent rights the Constitution never granted, or ignore ones it plainly protects, have moved past interpretation into unconstitutional lawmaking from the bench. It happens on the left and on the right.

The remedy is a restored commitment to applying the Constitution as written, whatever the ideology of the judge. Courts were never meant to serve as a shortcut around the democratic process.

#3 - What if judicial appointments had reasonable age boundaries?

Judicial power needs both seasoned wisdom and full mental acuity. Lifetime tenure with no age accountability has left some judges serving while visibly diminished, with no realistic removal short of impeachment.

A sensible minimum age (around 45) and a retirement age (around 80 to 85) would help. We already set fitness standards for pilots and surgeons, and the people who interpret our Constitution should meet no less.

#4 - What if judges were held to a binding ethics code?

Until 2023 the Supreme Court had no formal ethics code at all, and the one it adopted is voluntary and self-enforced. Lower judges are policed by other judges.

A binding, outside-enforced code should bar any judge from hearing cases involving their own financial interests, their family, or the political donors tied to their appointment.

#5 - What if we removed ethical transgressions by attorneys?

The system’s integrity depends on lawyers too. Judge-shopping steers cases to a hand-picked judge for nationwide rulings; class actions too often enrich attorneys while delivering pennies to the citizens they claim to represent; and prosecutors and defense attorneys who conceal evidence rarely face consequences.

Automatic, even-handed sanctions for violating the duty of candor, applied on either side, would restore fairness.

#6 - What if Congress fulfilled its oversight role without political bias?

Confirmations have become an embarrassing spectacle. One party blocks nominees for years; the other turns hearings into ideological auditions. Both treat the judiciary as a prize to be won.

The cost falls on citizens: Sixty-plus vacancies and cases that drag three to five years before resolution.

#7 - What if we strengthened the basics of judicial accountability?

Opinions should be written in plain language the affected citizen can read.

Major rulings deserve full, transparent argument rather than emergency “shadow docket” orders decided without it. Congress can also define and limit the power of a single judge to block national policy, without eliminating the injunction entirely.

The Mountain Ahead

Reforming the judiciary means changing an institution of more than 870 federal judges, appointed for life and none directly elected. This may be the steepest mountain of the three. The same truth carries it: The people hold the power, when we choose to use it.

We never vote for a single federal judge. We do, however, choose the President who nominates them and the Senators who confirm them. This is another reason every vote counts.

Too many of us are not voting, and every uncast vote hands that power to someone else.

The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home. In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote, more than voted for either candidate. The most powerful force in the country sat on the sidelines, convinced their voice did not matter.

They were mistaken.

Consider what that silence surrenders. A single presidential term now routinely fills over 200 of those lifetime judgeships, along with seats on the Supreme Court, and those judges rule for decades. Presidential elections turn on very small numbers: About 78,000 votes across three states in 2016, and some 43,000 in 2020. The people who stay home are not sitting out one election. They are shaping the courts for a generation.

The answer is not violence or civil war. Division is exactly what the powerful want, and their excuse to seize more power and strip our freedoms. We will not hand it to them.

The answer is something older and harder: We engage, neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike, with truth, integrity, and hope. We insist, through our senators, that no one reaches the federal bench who cannot show the character and restraint our republic requires, whatever their party.

Self-governance is work, and it is ours to do.

What this asks of us is small: Some of our time and some of our attention. American citizens must now show up as responsible stewards of our own freedom.

We can do this.

That concludes our look at all three branches: The one that enforces the law, the many who make the laws, and the courts that interpret them. Each was carefully designed to check the others.

Every branch has drifted from its purpose, and every branch can be restored. Structure alone will not do it. Renewal comes when the courageous good character of active citizens prevails. Our common values and virtues are where we turn next.

P.S.

The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. The answer is not socialism, communism, dictatorship, or monarchy.

It is a republic with true equal rights for all.

Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.

Simple Liberty unites everyday Americans to research the facts behind our nation’s biggest problems and develop solutions for the common good, because politicians and billionaires will not do it for us.

Most of us are disgusted, and the reasons are not hard to find. Members grow wealthy on a public salary. Congress shuts the government down and still collects a paycheck. Thousand-page bills pass without being read. The debts we are handing our children now run into the trillions.

In America, for now, what citizens allowed, citizens can reverse. This happened on our watch, which means it is ours to fix.

That is what Simple Liberty is: Everyday commoners collaborating across party lines to solve America’s biggest problems. Citizens, not politicians or pundits. We work toward the common good of all Americans.

The question is not “Who do we blame?” but “What if?”

Here are seven common-sense standards for every American:

#1 - What if character actually mattered?

What if proven good character became the first requirement for every member of Congress, ahead of party, money, and connections? Members would divest from conflicting business interests before taking office, and insider trading on the laws they write would be prosecuted rather than tolerated. Madison, Adams, and Franklin each treated character in office as the precondition of the republic itself.

#2 - What if we eliminated corruption in Congress?

If a law applies to ordinary Americans, it should apply to Congress: Healthcare, taxes, retirement, and legal accountability alike, with no carve-outs. What if any member convicted of a felony was removed, any member facing charges was placed on unpaid leave pending trial, and every elected official was audited every year? Those are ordinary conditions of employment everywhere else.

#3 - What if no balanced budget meant no pay?

In the fall of 2025, Congress failed its most basic job and triggered the longest shutdown in modern history, 43 days, while members kept collecting their salaries. Nothing in the Constitution prevents Congress from withholding its own pay during a shutdown and until the budget is balanced. Fiscal responsibility is a matter of stewardship rather than party. Handing our children trillions in debt they never approved is generational theft.

#4 - What if we right-sized and refocused Congress?

The ruling class wants to expand the House, with some proposals reaching 700, 1,000, or more. Consider the opposite. A leaner House of 250 members, with a minimum of two per state, would force collaboration and accountability. What if House terms ran four years instead of two, freeing members from the permanent campaign? What if Congress met in focused sessions that send members home to live among the people they represent? What if gerrymandering ended, with district maps following full adjoining counties, so that representatives must earn their seats?

#5 - What if Congress reclaimed the power to make our laws?

Article I vests all lawmaking power in Congress, yet most of the binding laws Americans must obey are written by unelected employees inside federal agencies rather than by the representatives we elect. What if no regulation could carry the force of law until Congress itself debated and passed it, and agencies returned to enforcing the laws Congress writes rather than inventing their own? Lawmaking belongs to the representatives we can vote out, not to the bureaucracy we cannot.

#6 - What if each member could introduce just two bills a year?

In a single recent two-year Congress, members introduced more than 19,000 bills, increasingly buried in thousand-page omnibus packages few read before voting. What if each member could author just two original bills per year, every new bill had to identify five existing laws to repeal, and earmarks ended entirely? Congress would write fewer laws, and Americans could read them.

#7 - What if government service meant compensation comparable to citizens?

A servant should not live better than the household they serve. What if every elected official paid the identical taxes you and I pay, with no loopholes, and their time off, benefits, and pensions were brought in line with the citizens they serve, including the same Social Security and Medicare the rest of us rely on? Public service can be honored without being made profitable.

Read the full article

The Mountain Ahead

These standards are a mountain to climb. Citizens have reformed our government before - the 17th Amendment won us the direct election of senators, the 22nd checked presidential power - peacefully and constitutionally. It can be done again - if we, the citizens, demand it and show up.

We decide who fills all 535 seats.

The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home. In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote - more than voted for either candidate. The most powerful force in the country sat on the sidelines, convinced their voice did not matter. They were mistaken.

Our elections are decided at the razor’s edge. Control of Congress can turn on a few thousand votes across a handful of districts. In race after race, the citizens who stayed home outnumbered the margin many times over. The non-voters don’t just sit those contests out - they could decide every one of them.

Hear this clearly: The answer is not violence, and it is not a civil war. It is older, harder, and far stronger: We engage - neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike - with truth, hope, integrity, and transparency.

Congress is our branch - built to represent us, and to make the laws we all must live under. Reclaim it, and we reclaim our voice in our own government. The cost is small - a little of our time, our attention, our care.

American citizens must now show up as responsible stewards of our freedom and close the door in tyranny’s face.

We can do this.

This completes our seven questions for Congress - the Legislative branch that makes our laws. Next come seven more, for the Judicial branch - the courts meant to interpret the law, not make it. Each branch has lost its way. Each can be restored - by us.

Read the full article

P.S.

The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. Not socialism, communism, a dictatorship, or a monarchy.

A republic where there are true equal rights for all.

Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.

Simple Liberty unites everyday Americans to research the facts behind our nation’s biggest problems and develop solutions for the common good - because politicians and billionaires won’t do it for us.

Join the Movement

Let’s be honest about something most Americans already know, but rarely say out loud: Congress is broken. Not just a little broken.

It was brilliantly designed by our Founders, but is being manipulated for personal power, profit, and ruling class advantage — across both parties.

Our Founders built a government of public servants — people who serve the citizens. With excessive pay, lavish benefits, and a national debt that grows every single day, the equation has flipped.

Today, citizens increasingly serve the politicians and the government — the exact reverse of our founding design. Public servants today are a ruling class. We are the subjects.

Here is the truth that stings more: We allowed this corruption to occur on our watch. American citizens — you and me — have permitted elected officials to abuse their servant powers for personal gain.

We stopped holding them accountable.

We stopped investing our time to stay informed and engaged. We made excuses rather than being responsible citizens — we’re busy, or we choose to be entertained by sports, social media, or whatever. We got cynical, and fell for the lie that politics is someone else’s responsibility.

The good news? In America — for now — what citizens allowed, citizens can reverse.

That’s what Simple Liberty is — everyday commoners collaborating, across party lines, to develop real solutions to America’s biggest problems.

Not politicians. Not pundits. Us.

Ordinary citizens proposing solutions that serve the common good of all Americans — not one party, not the connected few.

Let’s get to work. There are four cornerstone issues driving the dysfunction in Congress.

First, we need far more leaders with proven good character running for office.

Second, citizens need verifiable facts that are more easily accessible.

Third, citizens must commit themselves to finding the truth — not get fooled by entertainers, posers, and narcissists pitching distorted half-facts and outright lies dressed up as news.

Fourth, Congress must be forced to be good stewards and abide by the laws of the land — all of them. No more laws that exempt Congress. Enforcement of our laws should be modeled by Congress at its best, rather than exempting the political ruling class from consequences.

Here are seven “What If” questions about our elected officials in Congress. These are not radical demands. They are reasonable standards for people of good character — the kind of people our republic was designed to attract and depends on to survive.

Congress must be filled with people who believe in our republic. Good stewards committed to finding the best way in a civil manner, working together to do what is right, and demonstrating through their actions that all citizens matter equally.

#1 — WHAT IF… Character Actually Mattered?

What if we only elected members of Congress who were people of proven good character — totally committed to doing what is best for the long-term common good of all Americans, and who would not use their office for personal or family profit?

Imagine a Congress where every member divested completely from conflicting business interests before taking office. Where insider trading on legislation was not just technically illegal, but actively prosecuted. Where the phrase “public servant” meant something again.

This is not a revolutionary idea. It is the founding idea. The men who drafted our Constitution understood that self-governance requires self-governing people — leaders who place the common good above personal ambition.

We have had such leaders. Not perfect ones, but sincere ones — members of Congress who genuinely served their constituents, made hard votes that cost them politically, and returned home without having enriched themselves at the public’s expense. They exist today too, in both parties, though they are increasingly outnumbered and outmaneuvered by those who have mastered the art of self-preservation over service.

What if we made good character — real, regularly demonstrated, unwavering good character — our first and non-negotiable requirement for every congressional candidate? What if we simply refused to vote for anyone who had not demonstrated it?

ENDNOTES: 1–3

#2 — WHAT IF… We Eliminated Corruption in Congress?

What if we held every member of Congress to the same laws they pass for the rest of us?

This should be obvious. It is not. In recent decades, members of Congress have enjoyed privileges and protections unavailable to ordinary citizens — from insider trading advantages to legal insulation that would land a private citizen in prison.

Start with the basics.

What if any member convicted of a felony is immediately removed from office?

What if any member facing criminal charges is placed on unpaid leave while their governor appoints a temporary replacement — and citizens vote for a permanent replacement once the trial concludes? No exceptions based on seniority, party, or political connections.

What if elected officials and senior government employees must be audited annually? Not occasionally. Every year, without exception. Transparency is not a burden for honest people — it is only a burden for those with something to hide.

What if we removed every special perk that separates Congress from the citizens they represent? If a law applies to Americans, it applies to Congress. Healthcare, taxes, retirement, legal accountability — all of it. No carve-outs, no exemptions, no grandfather clauses.

We are not asking for saints. We are demanding servants.

ENDNOTES 4–6

#3 — WHAT IF… No Balanced Budget Meant No Pay?

What if members of Congress received no paycheck unless the budget was balanced — no debt created or committed?

Doesn’t that make sense? If they cannot properly manage our nation, then why are they paid?

In the fall of 2025, when Congress failed to do its most basic job — funding the government — the result was the longest shutdown in modern history at 43 days. The Congressional Budget Office estimated roughly 750,000 federal employees were furloughed each day, at a cost of about $400 million daily in withheld pay. Members of Congress, however, continued collecting their salaries. Senators earn $174,000 per year. The Speaker earns $223,500. Congressional salaries are protected by a permanent appropriation they passed in 1983, meaning it does not require annual renewal.

The Constitution guarantees congressional compensation. Fine. Nothing prevents Congress from passing a law that withholds their own pay during shutdowns and until a balanced budget is achieved. Several members have voluntarily refused their salaries during past shutdowns.

Let’s make it mandatory. No balanced budget, no paycheck. No funding agreement, no pay. When the consequences of congressional failure fall on federal workers and American families, the impact should first fall on Congress.

The president and vice president should also not be compensated for the time period when this occurs.

Lastly (for now), do not let them penalize citizens because they over-promise and over-spend. Tax increases are particularly painful for common citizens. It’s worth considering a requirement that any tax increase must require a two-thirds vote in both chambers. Raising the tax burden on American citizens is a serious act that should require serious, broad consensus — not a simple majority and a rushed vote.

Force politicians to work together.

Fiscal responsibility is not a partisan value — it is a stewardship obligation. Future generations are being handed massive, multi-trillion dollar debt they did not create and did not approve. That is not responsible governance. It is generational theft.

ENDNOTES 7–9

INTERIOR IMAGE 2 of 4 — upload natively (3:2). Familia 2 / documentary community.

#4 — WHAT IF… We Right-Sized and Refocused Congress?

What if we reshaped Congress — its size, terms, and schedule — into a body that was leaner, more focused, and far more accountable to the citizens it serves?

Start with size.

What if we reduced the House of Representatives to 250 members instead of its current 435?

The ruling class wannabes want to go in the opposite direction.

The House Expansion Commission Act (H.R. 2797) directs a commission to study the Cube Root Law, the Wyoming Rule, and other methods for enlarging the House. The cube-root method alone could push the House to roughly 700 members.

Proposals vary widely: A coalition convened by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences recommends an increase of 150 seats to 585, while grassroots movements such as Uncap the House push to repeal the cap entirely and expand the chamber significantly. Some commentators float ideas to expand the House to 1,000 or more.

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All of it moves in one direction — more politicians and more potential for corruption, gridlock, and wasted taxpayer dollars to fund more politicians, their staffs, and the time they consume across a myriad of government employees.

This is illogical, counterproductive, and contrary to the principles of accountable governance throughout history.

More members means more gridlock, more graft, more committee chaos, and significantly higher costs with less value for citizens.

We must stay the course of limited government defined in our Constitution.

The primary issue driving failure in our House of Representatives is a failure of focus, integrity, commitment to the common good, and accountability — not size. More bad apples does not make a better apple pie.

A leaner House of 250 members — with a minimum of two per state — would force greater collaboration, reduce the transactional nature of votes, and make each member more accountable to their constituents. Smaller bodies can act with greater decisiveness and be held to greater individual accountability.

Second, let’s talk about term in office.

A House member serves only two years, which means that from the moment they are sworn in, they are already running for re-election. The result is a permanent campaign — endless fundraising, constant positioning, and precious little time left to govern or even to read the legislation they vote on.

What if House terms were extended from two years to four? (Senators already serve six.) Longer terms would not shield members from accountability — they would still face the voters at every election — but they would trade the exhausting two-year fundraising treadmill for time to learn, deliberate, and serve. Less campaigning. More governing.

Third, let’s talk about schedule.

Today Congress sits in near-perpetual session in Washington, immersed in the culture of lobbyists, donors, and insiders — steadily removed from the people back home.

This is not what our Founders designed. They built Congress as a citizen body, not a permanent political class.

The Constitution requires only that Congress “assemble at least once in every Year” — a floor, not a command to live in the capital year-round. The Founders even set that annual meeting for the first Monday in December, timed to an agricultural nation, so that representatives could bring in the harvest, tend their affairs, and then serve.

That is how it worked for nearly a century and a half. From 1789 into the 1930s, Congress typically convened in December and adjourned by spring or summer — in session roughly five or six months, then home. Members were lawyers, farmers, and merchants who returned to their communities, lived under the laws they had just passed, and answered face-to-face to the neighbors those laws affected.

The full-time, year-round Congress is a modern invention, born of the federal government’s vast expansion — not a constitutional command.

The question is not whether Congress can meet less. It plainly can — and for most of our history, it did.

What if we restored that rhythm for our own time? What if Congress convened in two focused legislative sessions — say, February through April and September through November — reserving the rest of the year for members to live and work among the constituents they represent? Genuine emergencies could still be addressed as needed.

The specific months are ours to debate. The principle is the Founders’: concentrated sessions force clearer priorities, and real time at home keeps members grounded in the lives of ordinary citizens — not the insulated world of the capital and the aspiring ruling class.

Fourth, let’s stop gerrymandering.

Surgical manipulation of district lines to guarantee electoral outcomes is not democracy — it is corruption. The way many districts are defined today is embarrassing.

Instead, we should go in the direction of requiring Congressional district maps to be composed of full adjoining counties per district. Fair maps produce representatives who must earn their seats.

Smaller + More focused + More grounded + More fairly elected = A Congress designed to serve, not to rule.

ENDNOTES: 10–15

#5 — WHAT IF… Congress Reclaimed the Power to Make Our Laws?

What if the laws Americans must live under were actually written by the representatives we elect — and can vote out — rather than by unelected employees inside federal agencies?

Turn to the first substantive sentence of the Constitution. Article I, Section 1: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”

All of them. Not some. The Founders deliberately placed lawmaking in Congress because lawmakers — not bureaucrats — can be held accountable at the ballot box. Power that can be voted out is power that can be managed.

That is not how our government works today.

The overwhelming majority of the binding laws Americans must obey are not debated, written, or voted on by the men and women we send to Washington. They are produced inside federal agencies — tens of thousands of pages of regulations every year, each carrying the force of law, most written by career employees no citizen elected, and no citizen can remove.

Here is the pattern, repeated for the better part of a century:

• Congress passes a broad law with a noble title, declares a grand goal, and then hands the actual decisions — the specifics that govern our businesses, our schools, our land, our healthcare, our daily lives — to an agency. The hard choices, the ones that anger voters, are quietly delegated away.

• Next, elected officials claim they have achieved a greater good.

• Then, the “great good” laws become unpopular. What happens? Members of Congress shrug and blame the bureaucracy they empowered.

Let’s be clear: Both parties built this machine, and both parties feed it. Each finds delegation convenient. Now the beast is running amok.

In the past, bureaucrats submitted to Congress. Not so much today. Bureaucrats are less fearful of Congress today than at almost any other time in our history.

The unconstitutional action of Congress delegating legislative powers to bureaucrats happened decades ago. The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 further formalized it, substituting agency regulation for the deliberate, accountable legislative process our Founders designed.

Decade by decade thereafter, Congress surrendered more and more of the very authority the people entrusted to it — until now our government is run more by unelected bureaucrats rather than by the consent of the governed.

This is not merely inefficient. It is unconstitutional in spirit and design.

The Constitution vests all legislative power in Congress alone — which means Congress has no authority to hand that power to anyone else. The courts are only now beginning to enforce that limit again.

Why? Because when a single agency writes the laws, enforces the laws, and judges those accused of breaking its laws, it holds all three powers our Founders deliberately divided among three branches.

Our Constitution was specifically written to prevent this concentration of power.

What would restoring Article I actually look like?

What if no law could take effect except by Congressional legislation with clear, specific requirements and timelines?

Let agencies and citizens propose solutions. Share proposed solutions with full transparency online. Then, the people’s representatives follow our Constitutional process to research, propose details, debate, and decide.

Congress must do the work. No delegation of lawmaking powers.

What if agencies returned to their proper role — carrying out and enforcing the laws Congress writes — no longer allowed to create law?

What if every grant of authority by Congress to bureaucrats included a sunset date, forcing Congress to review, debate, and consciously re-authorize it — rather than delegating power once and walking away from it forever?

And now that we have removed lawmaking from our administrative state, what if we required an agency to work appropriately with law enforcement and our judicial system to hold people and entities accountable to the laws passed by Congress and implemented by the government?

Yes, modern government is vast, and some technical detail must be filled in by those with specialized knowledge. That is reasonable, but limited and subject to Congressional review and approval prior to implementation.

Members of Congress have repeatedly proposed reforms to require congressional approval of major regulations, and the Supreme Court has recently begun returning interpretive power to the elected branches.

Reclaiming the lawmaking power is not a partisan cause — it protects every citizen, no matter which party holds power.

Laws should be made by the lawmakers we elect — not a bureaucracy we cannot.

Restore this single principle, and we restore the cornerstone of accountability our republic was built upon.

ENDNOTES: 16–20

#6 — WHAT IF… Each Member Was Limited to Two Bills Per Year?

It is highly likely the sheer volume of legislation itself is a major part of the legislative problem and a source of corruption. Restraint is part of logical reform for the common good.

In a single recent two-year Congress, members introduced more than 19,000 bills and resolutions. Since World War II, Congress has enacted roughly 4 to 6 million words of new law every two-year Congress — increasingly packed into fewer but far larger bills, the thousand-page omnibus packages few members read in full before voting.

Much of this legislation is unread, written by lobbyists, and stuffed with earmarks that benefit a handful of connected interests at the public’s expense. The complexity of legislation is not a sign of serious governance — it is often a shield for corruption.

What if each member could introduce a maximum of two original bills per year, excluding committee work and co-sponsorships?

We don’t believe this has been proposed in a major way at the federal level, but this movement is active in several states — Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Wyoming. It is time to do so.

This single constraint would force collaboration, sharpen priorities, and end the practice of legislative grandstanding. If your ideas are limited, you choose the ones that matter most. You find partners. You build coalitions around substance rather than performance.

No earmarks. None. The era of trading public funds for political support must end.

Let’s also streamline our laws. For every bill introduced, the sponsoring members must collectively identify a minimum of five existing laws or regulations for repeal. The goal is not just better law — it is fewer, clearer, more accountable laws.

Limit the length of a bill to 50–100 pages. No more. The longest — the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 — was 5,593 pages long. Taxpayers should ask ourselves: How much of this massive bill was corrupt payments or unfair advantage given to cronies?

The number and length of bills in Congress inspire corruption and political power plays. It must stop.

ENDNOTES: 21–23

#7 — WHAT IF… Government Service Meant Compensation Comparable to Citizens?

Nothing reveals the lack of integrity and responsibility in Congress more plainly than how we pay those who serve us. A true servant does not out-earn, out-benefit, and out-secure the household they serve. That is our reality today.

Our focus is solutions. This is one major area where both Congress and the President must act if we are to restore our government to its original limitations, stewardship, and stability.

Therefore, a key question: What if the compensation and benefits of elected officials and government employees were brought in line with the citizens they serve?

Payroll Taxes

Every elected official and government employee must pay the same payroll and other taxes that every other American citizen pays. No loopholes.

Not “similar” payroll taxes. The identical tax plan you and I are required to pay.

Benefits

Reform their time off. Today, federal employees earn 13 to 26 paid vacation days a year depending on tenure, may carry 30 days into the next year, accrue 13 sick days annually with no limit on lifetime accumulation, and receive 11 paid holidays.

Do you know anyone who gets this much time off who is not a government employee?

A fairer standard might be: Combine vacation and sick days into PTO. Healthy people should not be penalized for not needing sick days, or encouraged to lie that they’re sick to get equal time off.

Provide 10–20 days PTO annually based on seniority. Cap PTO carryforward at 20 days, with total accrued vacation never exceeding 30 days — use it or lose it. Allow eight paid holidays. (Which holidays remain paid — and whether some are duplicative or unnecessary — is a separate discussion.)

Pensions

The current system has created a protected class of government workers and elected officials who enjoy pension structures, benefits packages, and compensation levels that are increasingly higher than what citizens can earn in comparable careers.

Pensions should be earned and paid in the year they are earned — not deferred into huge, unfunded long-term commitments. No individual may draw more than one government pension from federal, state, and local entities combined.

For existing retirees, there are commitments that have been irresponsibly made. Often pensions and benefits are paid until the death of the former government employee — or their spouse. Every year both benefits increase for inflation. Most jurisdictions offering these benefits — if not all — lack the funds to pay them.

Details matter and should be debated carefully to honor some portion of existing commitments while removing the risk and debt of future pensions and benefits for government employees.

Shift politicians and government employees to only a Social Security pension based on their prior salary, and they should only get the same Medicare options available to common citizens.

Why should politicians and government employees get paid more than common citizens with similar skills?

Public service should be honored. It should also be honest.

ENDNOTES: 24–26

The Mountain Ahead

Let’s be candid: Reforming Congress is tough because so many of the ruling class are profiting from their control of our top legislature.

Reforming the presidency is challenging — but it’s one person. Reforming Congress means confronting 535 politicians, their handlers, and the profit machines that keep them in office. That is 100 senators and 435 representatives in the House.

You can make a difference. Here’s how:

The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home.

In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote — more than voted for either candidate. The single most powerful force in this country is standing on the sidelines, convinced their voice does not matter.

They are mistaken.

Their vote matters. Your vote matters. My vote matters. Together, our votes powerfully make a positive difference.

Our elections are often decided at the razor’s edge — control of Congress can turn on a few thousand votes across a handful of districts. The political class is counting on your silence to retain their power. It has for over a century.

Hear this clearly: The answer is not violence. It is not a civil war. The people who profit from our division would like nothing better than for citizens to turn on one another. It would be an excuse for them to claim more power and take away our freedoms. We will not give them the satisfaction.

The answer is older, harder, and far more powerful: We engage — neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike — with truth, hope, integrity, and transparency.

We get involved developing real solutions to our nation’s biggest problems. We respectfully discuss and refine our solutions, approach, and the impact — so we comprehend the truth, and rally our brothers and sisters to restore the power to the people.

This is the quiet revolution the Founders built the ballot box to carry. Not rage — just passionate, civil, grateful resolve with courageous good character.

The cost is small — a little of our time, our attention, our care. It is time for the people — the citizens of this blessed country — to show up as responsible stewards of our freedom and close the door in tyranny’s face.

We can do this.

This completes our seven questions for Congress — the Legislative branch that makes our laws. Next come seven more, for the Judicial branch — the courts meant to interpret the law, not make it. Each branch has lost its way. Each can be restored — by us.

P.S.

The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. Not socialism, communism, a dictatorship, or a monarchy.

A republic where there are true equal rights for all.

Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.

Simple Liberty unites everyday Americans to research the facts behind our nation’s biggest problems and develop solutions for the common good — because politicians and billionaires won’t do it for us.

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ENDNOTES

These references are meant to introduce you to the data, not provide every source. We encourage you to explore more on your own, and welcome your submissions as comments on this post.

#1 — WHAT IF… Character Actually Mattered?

(1) Potential insider stock trading. Congressional Stock Trading, Explained — Brennan Center for Justice. Documents that nearly all members own public-company stock, the inherent self-dealing risk, and that majorities of both Republican and Democratic voters support a ban. | brennancenter.org

(2) The public overwhelmingly wants good character in politicians. Honesty and Ethics poll — In Gallup’s most recent annual survey, 71 percent of Americans rated the honesty and ethical standards of members of Congress as “low” or “very low” — the worst of any profession measured — while only 7 percent rated them “high” or “very high.” The low rating crossed party lines. The public’s demand for character in Congress is bipartisan and overwhelming. | news.gallup.com

(3) Good character, a precondition set by our Founders. James Madison, Federalist No. 57 (1788) — The aim of every constitution “ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good,” and then “to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.” The founders were explicit and unanimous on this point. John Adams: “Public virtue is the only foundation of republics.” Benjamin Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.” Good character in office was not optional to the founders — it was the precondition of the republic itself. | Library of Congress

#2 — WHAT IF… We Eliminated Corruption in Congress?

(4) Felons are serving in Congress. Status of a Member of the House Who Has Been Indicted for or Convicted of a Felony — A felony conviction does not constitutionally disqualify someone from serving in Congress — the only qualifications are age, citizenship, and residency — so a convicted felon may remain in office and even be re-elected. The historical record bears this out: At least 64 House members and 4 senators have been convicted of felonies or serious misdemeanors tied to official conduct, including bribery, fraud, and perjury. Character is not a legal requirement for Congress. It must be a standard we demand. | Congressional Research Service

(5) Politician audits ordered but not happening. The Financial Disclosure Process of the Legislative Branch Can Be Improved — Politicians’ annual financial disclosures are self-reported and essentially never independently verified. There is no audit of what members file against their actual records and no random-sampling program to check accuracy — the ethics committees review filings only for obvious errors and act mainly on outside complaints. A member who omits or misstates a holding may simply never be caught. The Government Accountability Office flagged this verification gap as early as 1981, noting the law itself contemplated audits that were never instituted, and watchdogs continue to call for mandatory random audits by financial professionals as a deterrent. We require ordinary citizens to substantiate their filings to the IRS under threat of audit; we should require no less of those who govern. | U.S. Government Accountability Office

(6) Congressional pensions are self-serving. Federal Retirement: Benefits for Members of Congress — Members of Congress receive a defined-benefit pension under FERS — on top of Social Security and a Thrift Savings Plan with government matching — a three-part retirement most private-sector citizens do not have. Members qualify for a pension after as few as five years of service, and their pension terms are more favorable than those of ordinary federal employees — a member can draw an unreduced pension with 20 years of service at the minimum retirement age, while a regular federal worker needs 30 — and there is no maximum-benefit cap. Those who govern should not retire on terms the governed cannot. | Congressional Research Service

#3 — WHAT IF… No Balanced Budget Meant No Pay?

(7) Politicians paid during shutdown. The 2025 (FY2026) Government Shutdown: Economic Effects — Congressional Research Service, Report R48832. Documents the October 1 – November 12, 2025 shutdown — the longest in modern history at 43 days — and the furlough of non-excepted federal employees. | congress.gov

(8) A counter-perspective on the balanced budget amendment. Constitutional Solutions to Our Escalating National Debt: Examining Balanced Budget Amendments — Brookings Institution. A counter-perspective arguing a balanced budget amendment is unwise, included for an evenhanded view of the debate. | brookings.edu

(9) Bipartisan support to withhold pay. No Pay for Congress During Default or Shutdown — Congress.gov. Members of Congress keep collecting their pay during a government shutdown — even as federal workers, from TSA agents to the military, are forced to work without theirs — because Article I of the Constitution guarantees congressional compensation. Lawmakers from both parties have proposed to change this. The bipartisan No Pay for Congress During Default or Shutdown Act (H.R. 1973, 119th Congress), introduced by Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), would withhold members’ pay for each day of a shutdown or debt-limit default. To respect the 27th Amendment — James Madison’s original anti-self-dealing protection, which bars mid-term changes to congressional pay — the bill holds the withheld pay in escrow and releases it at the end of the Congress rather than canceling it. In May 2026, the Senate adopted its own version for senators, effective after the November 2026 election. As the bill’s sponsors put it: if you don’t do your job, you don’t get paid — and Congress should be no different. These remain proposals, not yet law. | congress.gov

#4 — WHAT IF… We Right-Sized and Refocused Congress?

(10) Proponents push for expanding the House. Expanding the House of Representatives, Explained — A coalition of scholars and reform groups advocates dramatically enlarging the House of Representatives, frozen at 435 members since 1929 even as the population tripled. Advocates invoke the “cube-root rule” — the finding that peer democracies’ legislatures tend toward the cube root of their population — which for the United States implies roughly 700 members; some propose going further. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences formally recommends expansion (beginning with 585 seats and growing each census), and legislation such as the House Expansion Commission Act (H.R. 2797, 119th Congress) would commission a federal plan to enlarge the House. Proponents argue smaller districts mean closer representation; critics warn of cost, logistics, and simply adding more politicians. | amacad.org

(11) Increasing the body is a power play. Lesson from the Roman Republic — World History Encyclopedia. The Roman Senate held near 300 members through the stable centuries of the Republic. In its final, collapsing decades, strongmen inflated it for their own ends — Sulla to roughly 600, then Julius Caesar to 900, packing it with loyalists, which historians note neutered the Senate’s independence and power. As the Republic gave way to one-man rule, Augustus reduced it again to 600 — still double its original size. The lesson of Rome is that its legislature was inflated and packed by strongmen to concentrate their own power — stripping the Senate of independence as the Republic became an empire. A free people must guard the independence of its representative institutions. | worldhistory.org

(12) The permanent campaign. The 118th Congress’s Fundraising Treadmill — Issue One. A two-year House term means members start running for re-election the day they are sworn in. The non-partisan group Issue One found the typical House member seeking re-election in 2024 raised about $2,900 every day of the term — roughly $10,900 a day in competitive seats. Bipartisan bills like the Gallagher (R) – Phillips (D) “On the Clock Act” have tried to bar fundraising while Congress is in session. Longer terms are one way to ease that pressure and free members to govern. | issueone.org

(13) A return to the Founders’ rhythm. Article I, Section 4, U.S. Constitution; U.S. Senate Historical Office — The Constitution requires only that Congress “assemble at least once in every Year,” originally on the first Monday in December — a date chosen to fit an agricultural nation, so citizen-legislators could tend their farms and businesses before serving. From 1789 into the 1930s Congress typically met from December until spring or summer — roughly five or six months — and members, many of them working lawyers, farmers, and merchants, then returned home. The full-time, year-round Congress arrived only with the government’s vast modern growth; the 20th Amendment (1933) moved the annual start to January 3. A lighter, seasonal calendar is thus a restoration of the original design, not a departure from it. | senate.gov

(14) A shrinking legislative calendar. Vital Statistics on Congress — Brookings Institution. This authoritative, non-partisan data series documents a long decline in the number of days Congress actually meets to legislate, even as members spend more time fundraising and campaigning. Scholars tie the modern Washington schedule to the “permanent campaign” and to Congress’s diminished capacity to do its own work. Concentrated working sessions — with real time back home — are one proposed correction. | brookings.edu

(15) Gerrymandering and the courts. Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) — U.S. Supreme Court. The case paired a Republican gerrymander in North Carolina with a Democratic one in Maryland — proof both parties do it. In a 5-4 ruling the Court held that partisan-gerrymandering claims are “nonjusticiable,” beyond the reach of federal courts, explicitly leaving the remedy to the states and Congress. If it is to be fixed, the people’s elected representatives must do it. | oyez.org

#5 — WHAT IF… Congress Reclaimed the Power to Make Our Laws?

(16) The Constitution vests all lawmaking in Congress. Article I, Section 1, U.S. Constitution — “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” The Framers placed the lawmaking power — and only the lawmaking power — in the branch most directly accountable to the people. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize Congress to transfer that power to unelected officials. | constitution.congress.gov

(17) Congress has delegated its own constitutional charge. Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, H.R. 142, 119th Congress — The bill’s own findings state the problem plainly: Article I grants all legislative power to Congress, yet “over time, Congress has excessively delegated its constitutional charge while failing to conduct appropriate oversight.” The REINS Act would require both chambers to approve any major regulation — roughly $100 million or more in economic impact — before it could take effect, rather than letting it become binding automatically. Versions have passed the House repeatedly since 2011 but have not cleared the Senate. Defenders of the current system counter that agencies supply technical expertise Congress lacks — included for a fair view of the debate. | congress.gov

(18) The courts are beginning to return power to the elected branches. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) and West Virginia v. EPA (2022) — In 2024 the Supreme Court overturned the four-decade “Chevron deference” doctrine, which had required judges to defer to agencies’ own interpretations of ambiguous laws; courts must now interpret the law themselves. Two years earlier, in West Virginia v. EPA, the Court held that on questions of vast economic and political significance, an agency must point to clear authorization from Congress — the “major questions doctrine.” Both decisions push lawmaking authority back toward the people’s elected representatives. | oyez.org

(19) Credit for the law, blame for the bureaucrat. Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation, David Schoenbrod — Schoenbrod — a former Natural Resources Defense Council attorney, not a small-government partisan — argues that Congress delegates precisely so members can claim credit for a law’s popular goal while shifting blame to the agency for its unpopular costs. Members have described the maneuver in their own hearings as a bipartisan “two-step”: collect credit for the popular-sounding statute, then blame the unelected bureaucrats for how it turns out. Political scientist Morris Fiorina identified the same incentive decades earlier. | govinfo.gov

(20) Where the delegation began. Milestones in the Evolution of the Administrative State — American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For roughly a century Congress wrote the nation’s commercial law itself. That changed in 1887, when it created the Interstate Commerce Commission — the first independent federal regulatory agency — and, as a later Senate report put it, “saw a need for delegating part of the task of regulating commerce.” The intellectual case came the same year in Woodrow Wilson’s essay “The Study of Administration,” which argued expert administrators should be freed from the friction of separation-of-powers politics. Progressive-era reformers in both parties — Theodore Roosevelt as much as Wilson — built on it; the New Deal vastly expanded it. Defenders counter that industrial-age complexity made some delegation unavoidable. | amacad.org

#6 — WHAT IF… Each Member Was Limited to Two Bills Per Year?

(21) The number and length of bills is astounding. Statistics and Historical Comparison — GovTrack. The volume of federal legislation is immense. In a single recent two-year Congress, members introduced more than 19,000 bills and resolutions. The more revealing measure is length: Since World War II, Congress has enacted roughly 4 to 6 million words of new law every two-year Congress — increasingly packed into fewer but far larger bills, the thousand-page omnibus packages few members read in full before voting. The problem is not idleness; it is volume and complexity outpacing deliberation. | govtrack.us

(22) Limiting the number of bills — a state issue for now. Are there too many legislative bills? — Capping how many bills a legislator may introduce is a real, actively debated reform — but at the state level, not in Congress. Several state legislatures impose limits. E.g., Colorado caps members at five bills a year; North Carolina at ten; Idaho recently weighed a 25-bill cap, with proponents arguing it forces “quality over quantity” and frees time for substantive work members can actually read. No such limit exists in Congress, where a member may introduce unlimited bills. The reform is established in statehouses; whether it should rise to Congress is an open question. | Idaho Capital Sun / Mountain States Policy Center

(23) Earmarks are too often corrupt. Earmark Elimination Act — Earmarks — directing federal money to a specific project or recipient outside the normal merit-based process — were banned by Congress in 2011, then quietly revived in 2021 as “Community Project Funding.” A bipartisan Senate coalition has repeatedly proposed a permanent ban, arguing the practice “breeds corruption, leads to egregious overspending, and places the needs of special interests before those of the American people.” Reformers note an honest caveat: banning earmarks saves little money directly, since they only redirect funds already appropriated — the real case against them is corruption, favoritism, and the erosion of public trust. Others defend earmarks as a transparent tool for legislators to serve their districts. | U.S. Senator Joni Ernst + The Heritage Foundation

#7 — WHAT IF… Government Service Meant Compensation Comparable to Citizens?

(24) Disagreement of magnitude — more facts needed. Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees, 2011 to 2015 — Congressional Budget Office. For most workers, total compensation is higher in the federal government than in the private sector for people with similar measurable characteristics — education, experience, occupation, and location. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that, overall, the federal government paid 17 percent more in total compensation than it would have if pay had matched comparable private-sector workers. The advantage is concentrated among less-educated workers (53 percent higher for those with a high school education or less, 21 percent higher for those with a bachelor’s degree) and reverses at the top (18 percent lower for those with a professional degree or doctorate). CBO cautions its comparison cannot capture unmeasured traits such as motivation or effort. | cbo.gov

(25) Current benefits well above the private sector. The Facts on Federal Health, Leave, and Holidays — Beyond wages, federal employees receive notably generous current benefits. The Congressional Budget Office found the cost of benefits was 47 percent higher for federal workers than for comparable private-sector employees. The specifics are set by federal policy: 11 paid holidays a year; 13 paid sick days annually, with no limit on how much unused sick leave can accumulate over a career; and paid vacation that rises with service from 13 days in the first three years to 20 days, and to 26 days after fifteen years. Health coverage comes through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which offers the widest choice of plans of any U.S. employer, with the government paying roughly 70 percent of the premium. | cbo.gov; opm.gov

(26) Federal Employees’ Retirement System. Federal Employees’ Retirement System — Congressional Research Service. The largest single driver of the federal benefits advantage is retirement. Federal employees receive a three-part retirement most private-sector workers no longer have: A defined-benefit FERS pension, Social Security, and a Thrift Savings Plan with government matching up to 5 percent of pay. The Congressional Budget Office identifies the defined-benefit pension — now rare in private employment — as the single most important factor making federal benefits more costly than comparable private-sector benefits. Defined-benefit pensions, which guarantee lifetime income regardless of market performance, have largely vanished from the private sector, where most workers now rely on 401(k)-style accounts alone. | cbo.gov; Congressional Research Service

This is the third in our series of Commoners’ Corner posts exploring the vision of Simple Liberty - and the last of three examining the branches of government our Founders designed to serve us, not rule us.

In Posts #1 and #2, we examined the Executive and Legislative branches. The pattern we found was the same in both: Institutions brilliantly designed for the common good - but now too often corrupted for personal power, profit, and ruling class advantage - across both parties, spanning decades - on our watch.

The Judicial Branch has similar challenges because power can corrupt.

One distinct difference in the Judicial branch from the Executive and Legislative branches is that presidents have term limits and can be voted out - and members of Congress can be defeated at the polls.

Currently, federal judges - once confirmed - serve for life. This has challenges, which should be discussed.

However, there is a bigger concern and challenging question: How can Supreme Court justices be held accountable for applying the Constitution rather than twisting it based on personal preference, profit, or power?

Most solutions proposed to date - even those most well-intended - could simply transfer the corruption to an oversight group.

Our concerns are, how can the Supreme Court - and the entire federal judiciary - stay tightly aligned with its constitutional mandate? Many justices at every level - from district courts to the Supreme Court - have increasingly stopped applying the Constitution and the law - and started making it.

For this reason, judicial appointments have become political battlegrounds where the stakes of every appointment feel permanent and irreversible - because they are.

When judges legislate from the bench, citizens lose rights and freedoms.

When courts can rewrite the Constitution without going through the amendment process our Founders wisely established, self-governance is an illusion.

This is not a left problem or a right problem. Both parties have:

Appointed judges who exceeded their constitutional authority.

Manipulated the confirmation process for political advantage.

Benefited from and complained about judicial bias and overreach, depending on which direction the ruling went.

The primary problem is not which party controls the courts. Both can be biased and corrupt. The problem is that the courts have stopped obeying the Constitution and laws they have sworn to uphold.

One example of this party versus party madness is the recent wave of redistricting for political party advantage. One party has done it more than the other. The other party claims foul, but has some party leaders rushing to lower their standards and do the same thing - rewrite voting districts in questionable ways because the other party has done so.

This is not the answer.

A note before we begin: The federal judiciary is not just the Supreme Court. It is a three-tier system - district courts at the base, circuit courts of appeals in the middle, and the Supreme Court at the top.

The problems exist at every level, often worse in the lower courts where there is less scrutiny. Our seven What If questions address the full system, not just its most visible nine members serving in our Supreme Court.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH

We love judicial bias when it agrees with us, and hate it when it doesn’t.

When a court rules in favor of something we believe in - we call it justice.

When it rules against us - we call it unfair or corrupt.

This selective outrage is indicative of fear perverts our judicial system. One party selfishly relishes the rewards of judicial violations of duty in their favor, while the losing party awaits an opportunity for revenge.

In contrast, Simple Liberty seeks to require our courts to do what’s best for the common good with clear reference to our Declaration, Constitution, and laws properly established therein.

Our laws and courts must deliver true justice - equal rights for all.

Here are seven What If questions about our federal courts. These are not radical demands. They are reasonable standards for an institution our republic depends upon to apply justice faithfully, transparently, and without fear or favor.

#1 - WHAT IF… Character Actually Mattered?

What if we only confirmed federal judges who were people of proven good character - totally committed to faithfully applying the Constitution and the law, regardless of who appointed them or which party would prefer a different outcome?

The pattern should be familiar by now. We asked this same question about our presidents in Post #1 and about members of Congress in Post #2.

We ask it again here because the answer is the same: Without good character at the foundation, every structural reform is a sandcastle. Rules only constrain bad actors until they find ways around the rules - whereas character constrains people from within.

A judge of good character understands that the robe is not a license. It is a responsibility. The moment a judge begins reasoning backward from a preferred outcome to a legal justification, they have stopped being a judge and started being a powerful member of the ruling class in disguise.

This is particularly dangerous, because politicians can be voted out and it is easier to lock-up a politician or common citizen than a judge.

We have had judges of impeccable character. Not perfect ones, but principled ones - jurists who ruled against the appointing party’s preferences because the law required it. Who recused themselves from cases where their impartiality could be questioned and who wrote opinions that explained their reasoning transparently as they applied the Constitution and law as written - rather than as they wished it had been written.

They exist today too, at every level of the federal judiciary, in judges appointed by both parties. They are the standard we should demand for every nominee - more than ideological compatibility, demographic representation, and political reliability.

We are grateful for judges who demonstrate courageous good character. That is the standard - and it is worth demanding.

ENDNOTES: 1-3

#2 - WHAT IF… Judges Applied the Law Instead of Making Law?

What if every federal judge understood - and was daily held to - the constitutional boundary between applying the law and manipulating it?

This is the foundational corruption of the modern federal judiciary.

It must be named clearly: Judicial legislation from the bench is not interpretation. It is unconstitutional.

Our Constitution establishes three separate branches of government with distinct roles for a reason. The Legislative - Congress - makes the law. The Judicial - our courts - apply it. The Executive - the president - enforces it.

When courts invent rights the Constitution never granted, or ignore rights it plainly protects - substituting personal opinion for the text and its original meaning - they are unconstitutionally revising law. The cause may be bias, incompetence, or cowardice.

This has happened on the left and on the right. Courts have expanded federal power beyond constitutional limits and contracted it below them. They have claimed rights the Founders never wrote and dismissed rights our Founders explicitly protected.

The common thread is not ideology - it is trading judicial commitment to the common good for personal gain - power, profit, or self-vindication.

The remedy is not a different ideology on the bench. It is a restored commitment to the actual job of applying the Constitution for the common good instead of themselves. Judges must ask not what the law should say, but what it does say - and consider the context when the Constitution was written.

Where the law is silent or ambiguous, the answer is not judicial invention - it is legislative action or, where the Constitution needs updating, the amendment process.

Simple Liberty is clear on this point: The courts are not a shortcut around the democratic process.

Our Constitution and laws require our Judicial branch - all of it - to be guardians of our civil society.

ENDNOTES: 4-6

#3 - WHAT IF… All Judicial Appointments Had Reasonable Age Boundaries?

What if we established minimum and maximum age boundaries for federal judicial appointments - confirming judicial power requires both the wisdom that comes with experience, and the mental acuity that justice demands?

Our culture has developed two contradictory obsessions that both produce bad outcomes.

• On one end, we increasingly romanticize youth - assuming that energy and charisma are substitutes for wisdom, experience, and tested character. They are not. A brilliant young legal mind is not the same as a seasoned jurist or attorney who has spent decades applying the law, making mistakes, learning from them, and developing the judgment that only experience can produce.

• On the other end, lifetime appointments with no age accountability have produced federal judges serving although visibly diminished - physically, mentally, and emotionally - with no mechanism for removal short of the nearly impossible standard of impeachment.

Let’s discuss a reasonable standard: Minimum ages to become a federal judge, including Supreme Court justices, and the age they should transition from active service. For instance:

• Minimum of forty-five years in age is long enough to validate genuine life experience and tested character. Possibly there should also be a standard of experience in law, either as a judge or attorney.

• Eighty or eighty-five years old might be a good standard for retirement. There should be some age that protects the courts from being held hostage to the physical and cognitive realities that advanced age inevitably brings - for all of us, regardless of how brilliant we once were.

Yes, some people now remain physically and mentally healthy into their eighties and nineties, but that is a minority. Our standards cannot be solely based on exceptions, but rather what’s most common.

This is not disrespectful to older Americans. It is the honest facts and historical truth about human limitations and serious about the demands of judicial service. We apply age and fitness standards to airline pilots, military commanders, and surgeons.

The people responsible for interpreting our Constitution and laws deserve at least the same thoughtful standards.

ENDNOTES: 7-9

#4 - WHAT IF… Judges Were Held to a Binding Ethics Code?

What if every federal judge - including every Supreme Court justice - was subject to a binding, enforceable ethics code with real consequences for violations?

Until 2023, the Supreme Court operated without any formal ethics code at all. The code adopted that year is voluntary and lacks meaningful enforcement.

Lower federal judges are subject to a code, but enforcement is handled internally - by other judges - making accountability biased, extremely limited, and open to corruption.

Changes should be discussed for every level of the federal judiciary.

• Ethics Code: A binding ethics code should address behavior and financial conflicts of interest directly. Judges must not hear cases involving companies in which they hold stock, firms that employ their family members or close friends, or issues involving political donors who funded efforts connected to their appointment.

• Annual Audits: What if annual financial audits of judges and elected officials were the norm? Financial disclosure must be complete, accurate, and possibly the summaries made publicly accessible - not selectively reported or buried in exemptions.

• Recusal Standards: Mandatory recusal standards must be clear, objective, and enforced without regard to party or issue. The current system - where judges rule on their own recusals - is a conflict of interest in itself. An independent oversight body with genuine enforcement authority is needed.

• Imbalance: The ethics code should also address the growing imbalance in some of our circuit courts. Today, some appellate courts are so ideologically biased that they fail to operate as neutral appellate bodies. They blatantly act as enforcement arms of the ultra-left or right - rather than our Constitution, laws, and the common good of all citizens.

• We make this observation about the pattern, not specific courts or judges - both ends of the political spectrum have produced courts that fail to demonstrate consistent judicial neutrality.

• Disparity: Sentencing disparity across circuits and judges raises similar concerns about equal justice under law - the same crime should not produce vastly different sentences based on geography, the luck of judicial assignment, and/or a person’s heritage, faith, sex, age, or political beliefs.

ENDNOTES: 10-12

#5 - WHAT IF… We Removed Ethical Transgressions by Attorneys?

What if the federal court system also enforced tighter, more fair boundaries involving attorney misconduct that corrupts cases before they ever reach a judge?

The integrity of the judicial system depends not only on judges, but on the lawyers who appear before them. Four attorney-driven abuses have become so common and damaging that they deserve specific attention.

• Forum Shopping: This is the deliberate practice of filing cases in specific judicial districts - or even specific single-judge divisions - to obtain a favorable ruling.

• This has become a sophisticated litigation strategy, used systematically by plaintiffs on both sides of the political spectrum. Single district court judges in certain divisions have issued nationwide injunctions blocking federal policy for the entire country - not because the law demanded it, but because the case was steered to them by lawyers who knew what ruling they would get.

• This is not justice. It is judge selection to present your case to a judge who shares the attorney and/or plaintiff’s bias.

• Class Action Abuse: This has transformed federal courts into vehicles for massive settlements that enrich plaintiffs’ attorneys, while delivering pennies to the citizens the lawsuits claimed to represent.

• These get-rich-quick schemes by attorneys must stop.

• Judicial “rubber stamp” approval of these settlements too often profits the legal profession far more than the public. Reform must limit the amount of awards; severely limit payouts to attorneys - today, often 50% of the award; and only allow class action lawsuits that genuinely serve the plaintiffs they claim to represent.

• Attorney Misconduct: Prosecutors may withhold evidence, make improper arguments, and commit other violations of defendants’ rights. This unfairly, disproportionately harms ordinary citizens who lack the resources to fight back.

• Both prosecutors and defense attorneys have a duty of candor to the court - meaning they are prohibited from knowingly presenting false evidence or misleading the court about the facts.

• Violations are inconsistently enforced and once proven - rarely carry meaningful consequences.

• What if judges were required to sanction attorneys - prosecutors and defense attorneys alike - who violate their duty of candor?

• What if concealing or misrepresenting evidence carried automatic penalties, regardless of which side of the case the attorney represented?

• The goal is not to eliminate vigorous legal representation. It is to make certain the pursuit of justice is grounded in protecting the rights of all citizens, and consideration of the facts - all facts - rather than allowing an advantage to whomever is most skilled at hiding them.

ENDNOTES: 13-15

#6 - WHAT IF… Congress Fulfilled Its Oversight Role Without Political Bias?

What if Congress took seriously its constitutional responsibility to oversee the federal judiciary - and reformed the confirmation process to serve justice rather than partisan advantage?

The confirmation process for federal judges has become one of the most corrosive spectacles in American political life - it’s embarrassing. Both parties bear responsibility for its deterioration.

Republican-controlled Senates have strategically blocked Democratic nominees from receiving hearings or votes, leaving courts understaffed for years.

Democratic-controlled Senates have used confirmation hearings as ideological auditions, demanding that nominees signal their positions on politically charged cases prior to considering a single argument.

Both approaches treat the judiciary as a political prize to be won rather than an institution to be staffed with qualified, principled jurists. Both parties abandon the common good to achieve political gain.

The consequences fall on ordinary citizens. Federal court vacancies create backlogs. Backlogs mean cases that drag on for years. Justice delayed is often justice denied - and it most hurts Americans who cannot afford to wait.

Currently there are over 60 federal court vacancies across the country. In some districts, civil cases routinely take three to five years to reach trial. For an ordinary citizen - unable to afford years of legal fees while awaiting justice - that delay is effectively a denial. The wealthy and powerful ruling class can wait. Most Americans cannot.

Reform must address the confirmation process on both ends. Nominees deserve timely hearings and votes regardless of which party controls the Senate.

Hearings must focus on qualifications, judicial philosophy, and demonstrated character - not on extracting political commitments that compromise judicial independence before a judge takes the bench.

What if Senate rules required a confirmation vote within 90 days of nomination - no exceptions, no delays based on the political calendar? A nominee left in limbo for a year or more is not a neutral act. It is a political weapon wielded against the citizens who need those courts staffed and functioning.

Congress also has the authority - and the obligation - to exercise oversight of the judiciary through legislation. Where courts have exceeded their constitutional boundaries, Congress can and should act to clarify those boundaries through legislation.

This is not an attack on judicial independence. It is a recommended review - and strengthening - of the checks and balances system to confirm the federal judiciary is working as our Founders designed it.

Congress should also revisit the practice of “court stripping” - the constitutional authority to limit the jurisdiction of lower federal courts on specific issues. Used responsibly, this is a legitimate check on judicial overreach.

Used irresponsibly, it becomes its own form of political manipulation. The standard must always be the same: Does this serve the Constitution and the common good, or does it serve a party?

The judiciary serves the people. To do so, it needs oversight because it is populated with imperfect humans. Congress must never forget that.

ENDNOTES: 16-18

#7 - WHAT IF… We Strengthened the Basics of Judicial Accountability?

Power without accountability corrupts. We have seen it in presidents who treat the office as a personal enterprise. We have seen it in members of Congress who treat public service as a career of self-enrichment.

The federal judiciary is not immune - and several structural features of our current system create opportunities for abuse that reasonable reforms could close.

Here are three that demand immediate consideration, plus one fundamental question worth asking.

• Clear Opinions: Judicial opinions must be written in a manner that can be understood by the typical citizens they affect. The law belongs to the people, not to the legal profession. Opinions that are inaccessible to ordinary citizens - buried in legal jargon, unnecessarily complex, or opaque about their actual reasoning - undermine the public trust that the judiciary depends upon for its legitimacy.

• This does not mean oversimplifying complex legal questions. It means writing with the citizen in mind, not the law review.

• Shadow Docket: The Supreme Court’s shadow docket - a growing practice of issuing significant rulings without full briefing, oral argument, or detailed written opinions - must be examined and limited if it is violating the intent of our Constitution.

• Major decisions that affect millions of Americans deserve the full deliberative process the Court was designed to provide. Emergency procedures should remain for genuine emergencies, not as a shortcut around the transparency the public is owed.

• Injunctions: The ability of a single district court judge to issue a nationwide injunction blocking federal policy for the entire country is a structural problem that both parties have exploited depending on who holds power.

• One judge in one district should not have the unilateral authority to govern over three hundred million Americans. This authority should be examined, debated, and appropriately limited through legislation - possibly not eliminated entirely, but constrained to prevent the forum-shopping-driven abuse it has enabled.

Taken together, these structural reforms share a common purpose: Make the federal judiciary more transparent, more accountable, and more aligned with its constitutional role - without compromising the judicial independence that protects all of us from the political winds of the moment.

Independence and accountability balance - not replace - each other. The greatest judiciaries in history have been both.

Ours can be too.

ENDNOTES: 19-21

The Mountain Ahead

Let’s be candid about what we are asking.

• Reforming the Executive Branch means changing the behavior of one person in one office.

• Reforming Congress means changing the culture of 535 elected officials.

• Reforming the federal judiciary means changing an institution of more than 870 judges - appointed for life, none directly elected, all operating inside a legal culture that has built its own self-protective instincts over two centuries.

This may be the steepest mountain of the three - yet the same truth that carried the first two posts carries this one: The people hold the power, when we choose to use it.

We have never voted for a single federal judge - and we never will. We do, however, choose the President who nominates them, and the Senators who confirm them. This is another reason every vote counts.

Too many of us are not voting - and every uncast vote forfeits power to the powerful.

The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home. In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote - more than voted for either candidate. The most powerful force in the country sat on the sidelines, convinced their voice did not matter.

They were mistaken.

Consider what that silence surrenders. There are more than 870 lifetime federal judgeships, and a single presidential term now routinely fills over 200 of them - plus seats on the Supreme Court. Those judges rule for decades after the president who named them has left office.

Presidential elections turn on a whisper - about 78,000 votes across three states in 2016, some 43,000 in 2020. The people who stay home don’t just sit out one election. They shape the courts for a generation.

Hear this clearly: The answer is not violence, and it is not a civil war. The people who profit from our division would like nothing better than for citizens to turn on one another - it would be their excuse to seize more power and strip away our freedoms. We will not give them the satisfaction.

The answer is older, harder, and far stronger:

• We engage - neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike - with truth, hope, integrity, and transparency.

• We stay informed about the judges, nominees, and cases that quietly shape our lives.

• We insist, through our senators, that no one reaches the federal bench who cannot show the character and restraint our republic requires - regardless of party.

The common thread across all three branches is now visible. The disease is the same: Institutions built for the common good, then captured by people who discovered they could use them to serve themselves, their allies, and their class - at the expense of the commoners those institutions were meant to serve.

The cure is the same: It begins with us.

Self-governance is not a spectator sport.

The cost is small - a little of our time, attention, and action. We cannot wait. American citizens must now show up as responsible stewards of our freedom and close the door in tyranny’s face.

We can do this.

This post concludes our key current ideas for our three branches of government - the one who enforces the law, the many who make the laws, and the courts who interpret our laws. Each was carefully designed to check the others. Each has drifted from its purpose. Each can be restored.

Structure alone cannot save a republic. Revolutionary transformation occurs when the courageous good character of active citizens prevails - when we hold our government accountable. Our common values and virtues are where we turn next.

P.S.

The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. Not socialism, communism, a dictatorship, or a monarchy.

A republic where there are true equal rights for all.

Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.

Simple Liberty unites everyday Americans to research the facts behind our nation’s biggest problems and develop solutions for the common good - because politicians and billionaires won’t do it for us.

ENDNOTES

These references are meant to introduce you to the data, not provide every source. We encourage you to explore more on your own, and welcome your submissions as comments on this post.

#1 - WHAT IF… Character Actually Mattered?

(1) The Founders Made Character the Core Qualification for Judges

Against Judicial Supremacy: The Founders and the Limits on the Courts. The Heritage Foundation - The founders deliberately tied a judge’s lifetime tenure to the standard of “good behavior,” and Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist No. 78, praised “the benefits of the integrity and moderation of the judiciary,” warning that a judiciary lacking that character would “sap the foundations of public and private confidence.”

Hamilton’s point was that judicial power is safe only when “the judge unites integrity with knowledge” - character first, competence second. The founders did not assume good judges; they demanded them. | https://www.heritage.org/courts/report/against-judicial-supremacy-the-founders-and-the-limits-the-courts

(2) Public Trust in the Courts Has Collapsed to Record Lows

Americans Pass Judgment on Their Courts. Gallup - American confidence in the nation’s judicial system and courts fell to a record-low 35 percent in 2024 - a 24-point collapse since 2020, one of the steepest drops for any country’s courts that Gallup has measured worldwide.

For the first time on record, more Americans trust the honesty of their elections (51 percent) than trust their judicial system (35 percent). Because the judiciary “relies largely on the public’s confidence to protect its authority and independence,” this erosion is not a side issue - it is a direct threat to the rule of law. | https://news.gallup.com/poll/653897/americans-pass-judgment-courts.aspx

(3) Federal Law Requires Judicial Character by Code

Code of Conduct for United States Judges. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts - The federal judiciary’s own governing code makes character a binding requirement, not an aspiration. Canon 1 commands that “a judge should maintain and enforce high standards of conduct and should personally observe those standards.”

Canon 2 requires that “a judge should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” and that a judge “should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment.” The standard the founders demanded is written into law - the failure is in enforcement, not definition. | https://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges

#2 - WHAT IF… Judges Applied the Law Instead of Making Law?

(4) The Judiciary’s Duty Is to Apply the Law, Not Write It

Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review. Constitution Annotated, Library of Congress - The foundational 1803 Supreme Court decision defines the judicial role and its limits. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is” - to interpret and apply, not to legislate.

Marshall grounded this in the separation of powers itself: “The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written.” A court’s duty, in his words, is to follow the Constitution and the law as written - not to substitute its own will. This is the constitutional standard against which judicial lawmaking is measured. | https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S1-3/ALDE_00013514/

(5) The Supreme Court Ruled That Lower Courts Overreached Their Authority

Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025) - In June 2025, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that federal district judges had been exceeding their lawful power by issuing “universal” or nationwide injunctions - single-judge orders blocking federal policy for the entire country, not just the parties to the case. Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett held that such injunctions “likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts,” noting the universal injunction “was conspicuously nonexistent for most of our Nation’s history.”

The Congressional Research Service documented at least 25 such injunctions issued in a single five-month span - a tool used to short-circuit the normal democratic and legislative process. The Court confirmed that courts had been reaching beyond their proper role. | https://www.npr.org/2025/06/27/nx-s1-5448821/universal-injunction-supreme-court-executive-order-birthright

(6) When the Law Is Unclear, Judges Interpret the Text - They Do Not Invent It

The Case for Legal Textualism. Hoover Institution - There is a long-established judicial method for handling unclear or ambiguous law, and it does not involve a judge supplying their preferred outcome. As the article summarizes the approach of its leading modern proponent, Justice Antonin Scalia: “If the meaning of the words is clear, the judge goes no further. If they are ambiguous, the judge attempts to discern their meaning using well developed rules of construction.”

Scalia’s central concern was guarding against exactly the abuse this post names - that “judges will mistake their own predilections for the law.” Where text runs out, the constitutional answer is interpretation by established rules, or deference to the legislature to clarify - not judicial invention. | https://www.hoover.org/research/case-legal-textualism

#3 - WHAT IF… All Judicial Appointments Had Reasonable Age Boundaries?

(7) The Constitution Sets No Age or Experience Requirement for Judges at All

FAQs: Federal Judges. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts - The federal judiciary’s own reference confirms that for federal judges and Supreme Court justices, “the Constitution sets forth no specific requirements” - no minimum age, no legal education, no bar membership, no prior experience of any kind. A person could theoretically be confirmed to the federal bench with no demonstrated judgment whatsoever.

The judiciary acknowledges that informal criteria have arisen only because the founding document is silent. If we expect tested character and seasoned judgment from those granted lifetime power over our laws, a sensible minimum age and experience floor is a reasonable place to start. | https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/about-federal-judges/types-federal-judges/faqs-federal-judges

(8) Judges Have Served While Visibly Impaired, Casting Decisive Votes

Life Tenure for Federal Judges Raises Issues of Senility, Dementia. ProPublica - This investigation documents the real consequences of having no maximum-age accountability. Justice William O. Douglas spent his final months on the Supreme Court dozing during arguments, addressing people by the wrong names, and speaking in non sequiturs - and after resigning, kept showing up for work, convinced he was still on the Court.

In one documented case, an incapacitated justice cast a deciding vote. ProPublica found that roughly 10 percent of the federal judiciary was over 80, that the courts have “no systemic way to deal with judges with age-related cognitive problems,” and that the last impeachment for mental incapacity was in 1803. As one chief judge admitted, “We are the worst fraternity in the world about this.” | https://www.propublica.org/article/life-tenure-for-federal-judges-raises-issues-of-senility-dementia

(9) We Already Set Age and Fitness Standards for Other Safety-Critical Professions

Competence Not Age Determines Ability to Practice. AMA Journal of Ethics (American Medical Association) - Across many fields, the law already accepts that some responsibilities are too consequential to ignore the realities of aging. While the Age Discrimination in Employment Act generally bars mandatory retirement ages, courts have long held that for occupations involving public safety, age and fitness can be a “bona fide occupational qualification.”

Commercial airline pilots face mandatory retirement at 65 and, beginning at age 40, undergo physical exams every six months plus flight-simulator evaluations. Aging physicians increasingly face competency and cognitive screening, and older drivers in many states face added vision and renewal requirements. We accept fitness standards for those who fly planes, perform surgery, and operate vehicles. The people granted lifetime power to interpret the Constitution and decide who goes free or to prison arguably bear responsibilities at least as weighty - yet face no standard at all. | https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/competence-not-age-determines-ability-practice-ethical-considerations-about-sensorimotor-agility/2016-10

#4 - WHAT IF… Judges Were Held to a Binding Ethics Code?

(10) When Ethics Rules Are Self-Enforced, Accountability Rarely Follows

Federal Judges Have a Code of Ethics But Often Aren’t Held Accountable. NPR - A 2024 NPR investigation found that while the federal judiciary operates under a strict code of ethics, in most cases the rules are self-enforced - and as a result, “accountability is really hard to come by.” Reporters documented that disclosure requirements exist but often have “no clear enforcement mechanism,” with penalties for noncompliance that are “pretty weak.”

The core flaw, experts told NPR, is judges policing other judges or themselves. The Supreme Court fared even worse: Until 2023 it operated with no formal ethics code at all, and the code finally adopted remains voluntary and unenforceable. Experts across the spectrum agree that without an outside enforcement mechanism, a code of ethics has, in their words, no teeth. | https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248790613/federal-judges-have-a-code-of-ethics-but-often-arent-held-accountable-npr-finds

(11) A Major Investigation Found Judges Ruling on Cases Where They Held Financial Stakes

131 Federal Judges Broke the Law by Hearing Cases Where They Had a Financial Interest. Wall Street Journal (via American Bar Association Journal) - A Wall Street Journal investigation reviewing financial disclosures from roughly 700 federal judges found that 131 of them oversaw 685 cases involving companies in which they or their families owned stock - a violation of a 1974 federal law requiring recusal for any financial interest “however small.”

In about two-thirds of the contested rulings, the judges ruled in favor of their own financial interests. The judges had been appointed by presidents of both parties. Critically, the conflicts went undetected largely because judges’ financial disclosures were not online and were “cumbersome to request.” The investigation directly prompted the bipartisan Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act, signed into law in 2022 - proof that routine, accessible financial auditing works. | https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/131-federal-judges-oversaw-cases-involving-companies-in-which-they-or-their-families-owned-stock

(12) Federal Data Confirms the Same Conduct Can Produce Different Sentences

2023 Demographic Differences in Federal Sentencing. United States Sentencing Commission - The government’s own sentencing authority confirms that outcomes vary by factors that should have no bearing on justice. After controlling for offense and personal characteristics, the Commission found that sentencing differences across demographic groups persisted: B lack males received prison sentences 4.7 percent longer than White males for comparable cases, and Black males were 23.4 percent less likely to receive probation than White males.

Separate Commission research has documented significant “inter-judge disparity” - meaningful differences in sentences handed down by different judges for similar cases. Equal justice under law requires that the same conduct produce comparable consequences, regardless of who is sentenced or which judge is assigned. | https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/2023-demographic-differences-federal-sentencing

#5 - WHAT IF… We Removed Ethical Transgressions by Attorneys?

(13) Forum Shopping Is a Recognized Abuse - and the Judiciary Itself Has Acted Against It

Conference Acts to Promote Random Case Assignment. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts - The federal judiciary’s own policymaking body confirms forum shopping is a real problem and moved to curb it. In March 2024, the Judicial Conference strengthened its random-case-assignment policy specifically because, in divisions where only a single judge sits, the rules “made it possible for a litigant to pre-select that judge by filing in that division.”

The reform drew bipartisan support: Republican Senator Thom Tillis and the late Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy jointly raised the concern, and Chief Justice John Roberts flagged it in his 2021 Year-End Report. As Judge Robert Conrad explained, random assignment “deters judge-shopping... promotes the impartiality of proceedings and bolsters public confidence in the federal Judiciary.” | https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2024/03/12/conference-acts-promote-random-case-assignment

(14) Class Actions Often Enrich Attorneys While Delivering Little to the Public

What Is a Class Action Lawsuit? U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform - A federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau study of 562 class action cases found that only 13 percent of resolved cases delivered any relief to consumers - while plaintiffs’ lawyers can walk away with millions in fees and class members frequently receive “pennies, or in some cases, coupons.”

Independent academic research confirms the scale: an empirical study by professors Eisenberg and Miller found attorneys’ fees averaged about 22 percent of recovery across class action settlements, with fees in the billions. When settlements and defense costs climb, those expenses fall on businesses - raising prices, discouraging investment, and threatening the jobs those businesses provide - even as the citizens the suits claim to protect see little benefit. | https://instituteforlegalreform.com/blog/what-is-a-class-action-lawsuit/

(15) Attorney Misconduct Is Rarely Punished - on Either Side of a Case

Judges Mostly Agree on Most Problematic Prosecutorial Misconduct, But That Doesn’t Translate to Accountability. Innocence Project / National Registry of Exonerations - The duty of candor is widely violated and rarely punished. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, prosecutorial misconduct played a role in more than 30 percent of exoneration cases - yet just 4 percent of the prosecutors involved in those wrongful-conviction cases faced any personal or professional discipline.

The most common violation is the Brady violation - withholding evidence favorable to the accused, prohibited since the Supreme Court’s 1963 ruling in Brady v. Maryland. As the report notes, there are “currently no reliable and effective systems to hold prosecutors accountable.” The same principle this post urges - automatic, even-handed sanctions for violating the duty of candor - would apply equally to misconduct by any attorney, prosecution or defense. | https://innocenceproject.org/news/judges-mostly-agree-on-most-problematic-prosecutorial-misconduct-but-that-doesnt-translate-to-accountability/

#6 - WHAT IF… Congress Fulfilled Its Oversight Role Without Political Bias?

(16) The Founders Designed Confirmation as a Check on Character, Not a Partisan Weapon

The Senate’s Power of Advice and Consent on Nominations. United States Senate (Senate Historical Office) - The Constitution deliberately split the appointment power: the President nominates, and the Senate provides “advice and consent.” Defending this design in Federalist No. 76, Alexander Hamilton wrote that Senate review “would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity.”

The Framers chose a shared power, drawn from John Adams’s “advice and consent” language in the Massachusetts constitution, precisely to keep appointments tied to fitness and character - not to make confirmation a partisan trophy. | https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/constitution-day-2024-senates-power-of-advice-and-consent-on-nominations.htm

(17) Both Parties Have Escalated the Confirmation Wars

Nuclear Option. NPR / Encyclopaedia Britannica - The deterioration of the confirmation process has been a bipartisan ratchet, with each side escalating in turn. In 2013, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid triggered the “nuclear option,” eliminating the 60-vote filibuster for lower-court and executive nominees, citing Republican obstruction.

In 2016, Republicans refused to hold hearings or a vote on Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination for nearly a year. In 2017, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell extended the nuclear option to Supreme Court nominees to confirm Neil Gorsuch. Members of both parties have, in turn, condemned the very tactics they later used - a textbook case of partisan escalation that the Founders’ design was meant to prevent. | https://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522847700/senate-pulls-nuclear-trigger-to-ease-gorsuch-confirmation

(18) Court Vacancies Delay Justice and Harm Citizens and Businesses Alike

The Need for Additional Judgeships: Litigants Suffer When Cases Linger. Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts - The federal judiciary’s own reporting documents the human and economic cost of unfilled seats and understaffed courts. In overworked districts, the time from filing to trial often stretches to three or four years, driving up costs for litigants in attorneys’ fees, expert witnesses, and depositions “with no clear end in sight.”

The consequences reach beyond the courtroom: as the report notes, “case delays can force businesses to halt production lines and leave employees out of work indefinitely.” Federal judges warn that chronic delay “will erode public confidence in the Judiciary” and steer citizens away from the courts entirely. The bipartisan JUDGES Act, which passed the Senate without opposition, was crafted to address exactly this shortfall. | https://www.uscourts.gov/data-news/judiciary-news/2024/11/18/need-additional-judgeships-litigants-suffer-when-cases-linger

#7 - WHAT IF… We Strengthened the Basics of Judicial Accountability?

(19) Even Lawyers Understand and Prefer Plain Language Over Legal Jargon

Even Lawyers Don’t Understand Legalese, New Study Shows. Scientific American (reporting a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) - A 2022 study by researchers at MIT tested 105 U.S. attorneys on contract excerpts written in both “legalese” and plain English. The lawyers not only comprehended and recalled the plain-English versions better, they judged those versions to be higher quality, more likely to be signed, and no less legally enforceable than the jargon-laden ones.

If the professionals trained in legalese understand and prefer plain language, the case for writing judicial opinions the affected citizen can actually read is overwhelming. Earlier empirical work by Professor Christopher Trudeau found the same public preference holds across every level of education - the more specialized the reader, the stronger the preference for plain English. | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/even-lawyers-dont-understand-legalese-new-study-shows/

(20) The Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket Has Grown Dramatically - With Little Explanation

Supreme Court Behavior on the Shadow Docket. SCOTUSblog - The “shadow docket” refers to emergency orders the Court issues without full briefing, oral argument, or detailed written opinions - historically reserved for genuine emergencies like a pending execution. Its use for major, consequential rulings has surged: Georgetown professor Stephen Vladeck documented that across the sixteen years of the Bush and Obama administrations, the Justice Department sought emergency relief from the Court only eight times total, a number that has since climbed into the dozens in a single year.

The concern is not one-sided. Justice Elena Kagan warned the Court had rendered “the emergency docket not for emergencies at all,” but “only another place for merits determinations - except made without full briefing and argument.” Justice Samuel Alito, by contrast, has objected to the “shadow docket” label itself, arguing it wrongly implies the Court resorts to “sneaky and improper methods.”

That very disagreement among the justices is the point: major decisions affecting millions deserve the full, transparent process the Court was built to provide, and reasonable people across the spectrum are debating how to get there. | https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/supreme-court-behavior-on-the-shadow-docket/

(21) The Power of One Judge to Block National Policy Has Been Exploited by Both Parties

How One Judge Could Stop the Government: The Rise and Fall of the Nationwide Injunction. GovFacts - The ability of a single district judge to freeze federal policy nationwide has been used as a political weapon by litigants of both parties, depending on who holds the White House - blocking Obama-era, Trump-era, and Biden-era policies in turn through strategic, forum-shopping-driven filings.

This explainer traces both the rise of the practice and its limits: critics across the spectrum argue it lets one judge short-circuit the normal process by which legal questions percolate through multiple courts, while defenders note it can prevent widespread harm while litigation proceeds. In June 2025, the Supreme Court sharply curtailed the practice, and Congress retains the authority to define and appropriately limit this remedy through legislation - exactly as this post urges, constraining the abuse without necessarily eliminating the tool entirely. | https://govfacts.org/government/federal/federal-court-system/how-one-judge-could-stop-the-government-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-nationwide-injunction

Join the Movement

What if the person sitting in the Oval Office worked for us instead of themselves?

Most of us are frustrated, and the reasons are not hard to find. Promises break. Recent presidents have enriched themselves while everyday Americans struggled. Executive orders have taken the place of legislation. Pardons have gone to friends and family. The deficits we are handing our children now run into the trillions.

We try not to be vindictive. We have every right to want better.

Frustration can harden into anger and destruction, or it can be turned toward restoration. We can divide and isolate, or we can come together on the truths we share and rebuild what works.

If history is any guide, the difference between those paths will be measured in our freedoms and in more than 100 million American lives.

Let’s start building the second path together.

That is what Simple Liberty is: Everyday commoners collaborating across party lines to solve America’s biggest problems. Citizens, not politicians or pundits. We work toward the common good of all Americans, grounded in three simple values that restore our republic.

The question is not “Who do we blame?” but “What if?”

Here are seven common-sense standards Americans on the left, the right, and the center can stand behind:

#1 - What if character actually mattered?

What if we elected a President committed to the long-term common good, one who would not profit personally or enrich family while in office? George Washington served two terms and gladly returned to his farm. What if character became our first requirement again?

#2 - What if the President operated within the Constitution?

The President’s first oath is to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, not to stretch it or reinterpret it for convenience. What if we stopped cheering when our own side stretched it, and insisted instead that no President may?

#3 - What if Executive Orders served laws, not ambitions?

Executive Orders exist to carry out the laws Congress passes and to respond to true emergencies. They were never meant to bypass Congress when a President lacks the votes. What if we ended pardon abuse by constitutional amendment, ruling out blanket and pre-emptive pardons for allies and family, and reserving mercy for cases judged one at a time?

#4 - What if fiscal responsibility were required?

Our national debt reached $38.4 trillion in 2025, up from $5.6 trillion in 2000. Both parties have spent recklessly, buying votes with borrowed money. What if a President worked with Congress to cut waste, eliminate redundant agencies, and operate at a surplus, so that the debt we hand our children shrinks every year?

#5 - What if education united rather than divided us?

We rank 28th among developed nations. Funding is not the problem: We have spent trillions while schools replaced American truth, character, and civics with moral relativism, redistributionist ideology, and historical revisionism.

When shared values erode, something else fills the space. France, Russia, Germany, China, and Venezuela each followed that pattern, at a cost of more than 150 million lives. What if we taught every child our true history, its successes and its failures, along with the character a republic requires to survive?

#6 - What if America led through strength AND wisdom?

America need not be the world’s police force, and it need not write blank checks. Retreat is no answer either. What if we pursued a foreign policy grounded in historical fact rather than ideology, strengthened alliances built on shared values, and measured success by the peace and prosperity we build with our allies? This course demands more of us than either extreme, and history suggests it is the one that works.

#7 - What if the President modeled our values?

What if the person in our highest office consistently demonstrated courageous good character, truth, integrity, gratitude, responsibility, and civility, in public and in private? The most visible adult in America shapes how our children behave and what they believe. Character in that office does not stay in that office.

The Mountain Ahead

These standards are a mountain to climb. The climb has been made before by Washington, Lincoln, and Eisenhower, imperfect people who chose service over self. It can be made again, if we the citizens demand it and show up to choose.

We decide who sits in that chair.

The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home. In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote, more than voted for either candidate for President. The most powerful force in the country sat on the sidelines, convinced their voice did not matter.

They were mistaken.

Presidential elections turn on very small numbers. In 2000, 537 votes in Florida decided the outcome. Tens of thousands spread across a handful of states decided 2016 and 2020, and a couple hundred thousand decided 2024. In every one of those elections, the citizens who stayed home outnumbered the margin many times over. They could have reversed the result.

The answer is not violence or civil war.

It is something older and harder: We engage, neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike, with truth, integrity, and hope.

The President sets the tone for everything else, which is why we began here. What this asks of us is small: Some of our time and some of our attention. It is time for the citizens of this blessed country to show up as responsible stewards of our own freedom.

We can do this.

This completes our seven questions for the Executive branch, the branch that enforces the law. Next come seven more for Congress, the Legislative branch designed to represent us by making just laws. Every branch has drifted from its purpose, and every branch can be restored by the citizens it serves.

P.S.

The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. The answer is not socialism, communism, dictatorship, or monarchy.

It is a republic with true equal rights for all.

Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.

Simple Liberty unites everyday Americans to research the facts behind our nation’s biggest problems and develop solutions for the common good, because politicians and billionaires will not do it for us.

Join the Movement

Today, most of us are frustrated.

We’re disappointed when another leader’s promise is broken. We’re upset as recent presidents enrich themselves while everyday Americans struggle. We’re irritated by executive overreach that ignores the Constitution.

We’re shocked as pardons flow to political supporters, friends, and family like party favors. We’re concerned about trillion-dollar deficits burdening our children and the generations to come.

We try not to be vindictive. We have every right to want better.

Here’s our choice: We can let our frustration harden into anger and destruction, or we can focus it on restoration. We can divide, isolate, and hate - or we can come together on the core truths we share and rebuild what works.

The difference between these two paths? Our freedoms and about 100 million American lives, if history is our guide.

Let’s start building the second path together.

It begins with a different kind of question. Not “Who do we blame?” but “What if?”

Here are seven “What If” questions about presidential leadership. Not fantasies. Not partisan talking points. Just common-sense standards that any American - left, right, or center - can rally behind.

#1 - WHAT IF… Character Actually Mattered?

What if we elected a President who was a person of good character, totally committed to doing what’s best for the long-term common good of all Americans - and who would not do anything for personal or family profit while in office?

Imagine a president who divested completely from business interests. Who would not allow themselves to profit from policy decisions. Who viewed the presidency as a sacred trust - rather than a tool to increase their wealth and the power of family and friends.

This is not revolutionary. It is a basic cornerstone of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution - of all great leaders. The office of President was never meant to be a money-making opportunity or a chance to behave like a king.

George Washington served two terms as president and then gladly returned to his farm. He didn’t leverage his presidency to enrich his family. Many of our other presidents followed his example - until recently.

• What if we demanded the same today?

• What if we made it clear that any hint of self-dealing disqualifies someone from office? We voted based on character over party.

• What if good character - real, regularly demonstrated, unwavering good character - became our first and non-negotiable requirement?

^{ENDNOTES: 1-3}

#2 WHAT IF… The President Led Us To Operate Within The Constitution?

What if our presidents limited all actions of each branch of the federal government to operate solely within Constitutional law - not stretching it, not reinterpreting it for convenience, but actually following it?

The Constitution isn’t a suggestion. It’s not a set of guidelines to be honored when politically expedient and ignored when inconvenient. It’s the supreme law of our land, and the President’s first oath is to “preserve, protect, and defend” it.

• What if we held them to that oath?

• What if we immediately, peacefully, respectfully but firmly challenged - through our representatives and courts - any presidential action that exceeded Constitutional authority?

• What if we stopped cheering when “our side” bends the rules, but instead insisted nobody gets to bend them?

The Constitution protects all of us.

When any President violates it, they threaten every American’s rights - not just their political opponents.

^{ENDNOTES: 4-6}

#3 WHAT IF… Executive Orders Served Laws, Not Ambitions?

What if the President limited their use of Executive Orders to fulfilling laws passed by Congress and responding to true national emergencies - not circumventing the legislative process or imposing a personal agenda?

Executive Orders were never meant to function as substitute legislation. They exist to help the President execute the laws Congress passes, and respond to genuine crises when immediate action is necessary.

• What if we returned to that original purpose?

• What if presidents couldn’t use Executive Orders to do an end-run around Congress when they don’t have the votes?

• What if each Executive Order had to cite the Congressional law it implements or the Constitutional emergency provision it invokes?

• What if Congress could challenge any order and escalate it to the Supreme Court with a two-thirds vote?

• And what if we ended the pardon abuse entirely through constitutional amendment - requiring Senate approval for each pardon, one at a time?

No more blanket pardons for 1,500 people. No more pre-emptive pardons for family members who haven’t been convicted - but possibly should be.

Just case-by-case mercy for truly deserving individuals.

^{ENDNOTES: 7-9}

#4 WHAT IF… Fiscal Responsibility Was Required?

What if the President worked as a partner with Congress to shrink the size and scope of the Federal government to be consistent with our Constitution - and committed to operating at a financial surplus, so that total federal debt decreased every single year?

Our national debt was $38.4 trillion as of December 2025. It was about $5.6 trillion in the year 2000.

What happened?

No accountability - from voters, then elected officials, the judicial branch, and bureaucrats. The problem with accountability starts with American citizens who vote.

The contrast is stark: Prior presidents did their best to limit federal government debt. Today’s presidents leave us bankrupt. Most of our presidents sacrificed themselves to serve the common good. In recent decades, our presidents seem more focused on serving themselves.

Which legacy do we want for our children?

This is not a political talking point. It’s a catastrophe we’re handing to our children, grandchildren, and future generations.

Debt cripples our ability to maintain our nation’s infrastructure, provide true equal opportunity (not stuff) for all, and defend our nation.

Both parties have spent recklessly for decades, buying votes with borrowed money.

• What if the next President said, “No more.”

• What if they presented budgets that had a budget surplus?

• What if they worked with Congress to eliminate redundant agencies, removed unnecessary laws, consolidated other laws, cut ineffective programs, and return responsibilities to states and communities as the Constitution intended them?

• What if we passed laws that no elected official would be paid compensation or benefits, including travel and entertainment reimbursements, unless the federal budget was operating at a surplus?

This would require courageous good character, wisdom, and collaboration. Some programs would end. Some benefits would be reduced. Some people would be angry.

This decision is clearly for the common good of all Americans.

What if we finally had a President with enough integrity and courage to tell us the truth: We can’t borrow forever, hard choices are necessary, and fiscal responsibility is an act of loving, courageous good character for future generations?

^{ENDNOTES: 10-12}

#5 WHAT IF… Education United Rather Than Divided Us?

What if the President worked with Congress to establish educational standards for all schools - public, private, and home schools?

Simple, basic requirements for all educators to develop citizens who know our true history, how our government works, and their responsibilities as citizens - grounded in the Declaration of Independence that birthed our nation and the Constitution that established our republic.

• What if we trained each new generation how to have good character, share common values, and commit to responsibly extend America’s freedoms into the future?

We currently rank 28th among developed nations - 34th globally. We’re failing our children. We’re failing our nation, just as every great civilization that collapsed has done for thousands of years.

Isn’t it time we learned from history and restored our republic before it’s too late?

Billionaire Ray Dalio has studied the rise and fall of civilizations. In his book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order, he identifies six stages of every world power. The sixth is when it falls apart. He concludes America is late in stage five, and rapidly entering stage six.

Education is the long game to restore us - but one that needs our immediate attention. Shortcuts won’t save us. History has proven repeatedly that the only way to sustain a great nation is by training up the next generation.

We have failed to do this. That failure is the core of our disunity today.

NOTE: Rome didn’t fall because of external enemies. It collapsed because it stopped teaching the next generation what made Rome great, and stopped holding adults accountable to those proven standards. The barbarian invasions were symptoms, not the cause.

Our failure isn’t from lack of funding - we’ve wasted trillions funding schools that replaced teaching American truth, character, civics, and unity with the opposite:

Moral relativism, socialist redistributionist ideology, and historical revisionism that distorts the facts about our founders and our structure of government.

One result of this agenda is measurable and frightening: The share of college students who say it can be acceptable to use violence to shut down a campus speaker has climbed from 20% in 2020 to 34% today.

This is our fault as citizens and voters. We failed to elect people of good character. We failed to hold politicians accountable. We failed to develop character in our own families.

History offers us a choice: Learn from Rome’s collapse, or repeat it. Unite around shared values, or fragment into tribalism. Teach the next generation what makes us great, or watch tyranny fill the vacuum.

The evidence is clear. The choice is ours - the regular guys, average joes, commoners.

Every successful civilization has been built on a core set of shared values that unite its people. When that foundation erodes - when feelings replace “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” and bullies sell the lie that all truth is relative - a vacuum forms.

History proves these vacuums never stay empty. What fills them is never peace or prosperity. It always ends the same way:

• France’s rejection of all moral authority during the Revolution led to the Reign of Terror and eventually Napoleon’s dictatorship (1789). It is estimated these tyrants were responsible for the deaths of 5-7 million people.

• Russia’s abandonment of traditional values created the chaos that gave rise to Communism and Stalin’s purges (1917). It is estimated Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 20-40 million people including famines.

• Weimar Germany’s moral relativism and economic chaos opened the door for Hitler’s totalitarianism (1933). It is estimated Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 11-17 million people.

• China’s Cultural Revolution destroyed traditional Confucian values, creating a vacuum filled by Mao’s brutal ideology and today’s surveillance state (1949). It is estimated Chairman Mao was responsible for the deaths of 40-80 million people.

• More recently, Venezuela’s erosion of constitutional limits and shared civic values enabled Chavez and Maduro’s authoritarian socialism (1999). It is estimated these tyrants were responsible for the deaths of 300,000-500,000 people and 8 million fled the country.

Over 150 million deaths in those countries. Five different continents. Same pattern: Abandon shared values → chaos → tyranny.

America isn’t immune. We’re just the next global power in line to fail - if we don’t wake up now.

Education is a key cornerstone to protect us commoners from tyrants.

Nations either unite around principles that protect human dignity, or they fragment into tribalism and submit to whoever seizes power.

The genius of America’s founders was taking Judeo-Christian principles - human dignity, unalienable rights, moral accountability, limits on power - and building them into a civic framework that protects everyone equally, regardless of heritage, age, or peaceful faith.

You don’t have to believe in God to benefit from a system that says your rights come from your humanity, rather than government permission. America’s foundation requires a commitment to peaceful “cultural Christianity” - honoring the values that produce freedom and justice for all, whether you follow Jesus, the Jewish Torah, or neither.

Today, even prominent atheists are calling themselves cultural Christians because they recognize the value of Judeo-Christian principles in protecting freedom and human dignity.

What if we returned to teaching our children that America is the nation President Abraham Lincoln summarized as, “…of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Freedom does not exist on its own. It requires gratitude, responsibility, commitment, and an investment of time.

This isn’t about federal control of curriculum. It’s about advancing our nation through baseline standards that unite every child around the true facts of American history - our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and a transparent, fair, factual exploration of our greatest successes and failures.

Teaching our children who we are as one nation, where we came from, and how we move forward together is the foundation.

Only then can we develop in them the courageous good character, commitment to equal rights, and dedication to the common good that our republic requires to thrive.

What we’ve heard is true: United we stand. Divided we fall.

^{ENDNOTES: 13-16}

#6 WHAT IF… America Led Through Strength AND Wisdom?

What if the President worked with our global allies to maintain peace through wisdom, long-term vision, strategic fortitude, and mutual success - while being a responsible steward of American resources and lives?

What if America was first a role model of good character, showing others how we can prosper together rather than tell them how to live their lives or get involved in their battles?

Being America’s top executive does not mean our president is leading a kingdom or empire. It doesn’t mean acting as the world’s police force or writing blank checks to every nation that asks.

It also doesn’t mean isolationism or abandoning the alliances that have prevented major wars for nearly 80 years.

• What if we pursued a foreign policy grounded in wisdom based on historical facts rather than ideology?

• What if we strengthened alliances based on shared values and mutual benefit?

• What if we were willing to lead, but demanded that our allies contribute their fair share?

• What if we measured success not by how much we spend or how many bases we have, but by the success of peace and prosperity we support with our allies?

• What if the President approached global challenges with the understanding that long-term vision often means short-term restraint?

Get this wrong, and we repeat Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - endless wars that drain resources and lives without victory - or we retreat into isolationism and watch allies fall to autocrats who won’t hesitate when we need help.

The middle path - strength with wisdom - is harder. It’s also the only one that works.

^{ENDNOTES: 17-19}

#7 WHAT IF… The President Was a Role Model For Our Values?

What if the President was a consistent role model for the three core values and nine virtues of what I call, Simple Liberty?

The Three Simple Liberty Core Values, each with three supporting virtues from the ancient Stoics and religions:

• Courageous Good Character (faith, truth, integrity)

• True Equal Rights for All (valuing life, liberty, covenant)

• Humble Work for the Common Good (gratitude, responsibility, family)

What if we expected our President to demonstrate these in word and deed? Not flawless - we’re all human - but a genuine commitment to daily sincerely demonstrate these values publicly and privately?

What if the President behaved in a civil manner at all times? Past presidents did this.

• What if they spoke truth even when politically costly?

• What if they showed integrity when it would be easier to compromise?

• What if they approached every decision with gratitude for the privilege of serving?

• What if they took personal responsibility for mistakes - theirs and those of their people - rather than blaming others?

• What if they honored family and encouraged all Americans to do the same?

Character matters. Values matter. When the person in our highest office consistently demonstrates them, they inspire all of us to do the same.

^{ENDNOTES: 20-22}

This is the first in a series of posts exploring Simple Liberty - a non-partisan, values-based framework for America to continue as a free, independent nation.

In our next post, we turn from the one to the many - Congress, the branch built to represent us. After that, the Courts. Each branch has lost its way. Each can be restored.

Only by us - the commoners - the heart and soul of America.

The Mountain Ahead

Let’s be candid: These seven standards are a mountain to climb. They call for a President of rare character - someone willing to spend political capital, absorb fierce criticism, and disappoint even their own supporters to do what is right.

It has been done before. Washington, Lincoln, Eisenhower - imperfect people who chose service over self. It can be done again.

Only if we, the citizens, demand it - and only if we show up to choose.

We decide who sits in that chair.

The largest bloc in America is not the left or the right. It is the people who stayed home.

In 2024, roughly 89 million eligible Americans did not vote - more than voted for either candidate for President. The single most powerful force in this country sat on the sidelines, convinced their voice did not matter.

They were mistaken.

Their vote matters. Your vote matters. My vote matters. Together, we choose the character of the person in the Oval Office.

That choice is far closer than most people think. The presidency has turned on a whisper: 537 votes in Florida decided 2000. About 78,000 votes across three states decided 2016. Some 43,000 across three states decided 2020. Roughly 230,000 across three states decided 2024.

In every one of those states, the citizens who stayed home vastly outnumbered the margin of victory. The non-voters did not just sit out those elections - they could have reversed them.

The ruling class is counting on that silence. It has for over a century.

The answer is not violence or civil war.

Recall the stakes we opened with - our freedoms, and, if history is our guide, about 100 million lives.

The people who profit from our division would love nothing more than for citizens to turn on one another; it would be their excuse to seize more power and strip away our freedoms. We will not give them the satisfaction.

The answer is older, harder, and far more powerful: We engage - neighbor to neighbor, voter and non-voter alike - with truth, hope, integrity, and transparency.

We refuse to vote for anyone - of any party - who will not place the common good above their own. We stay informed. We discuss candidates and issues with civility, even when it is uncomfortable. We hold whoever wins to the standard - peacefully, but relentlessly.

Remember: The President sets the tone for everything else. Get this one right, and the rest becomes possible. That is why we began here.

This is the quiet revolution the Founders built the ballot box to carry. Not rage - just passionate, civil, grateful resolve with courageous good character.

The cost is small - a little of our time, attention, and action. Now is time for the people - the citizens of this blessed country - to show up as responsible stewards of our freedom and close the door in tyranny’s face.

We can do this.

This completes our seven questions for the Executive branch - the branch that enforces the law. Next come seven more, for Congress - the Legislative branch designed to represent us by making just laws. Each branch has lost its way. Each can be restored - by us.

P.S.

The only hope for America is to restore our covenant to common values, our federal government’s wise three-branch design, and the founding solutions we have abandoned or allowed to be corrupted. Not socialism, communism, a dictatorship, or a monarchy.

A republic where there are true equal rights for all.

Renewal requires us to strengthen our character, protect our rights, and gratefully steward the people’s government for the common good.