Committee advances bill allowing foreign national driver's licenses to serve as photo ID for voter registration

Senate Bill 158, sponsored by Senator Barfoot, received a favorable committee report after a brief presentation and questions from committee members.

Senator Barfoot told the committee the measure was “very simple” and “a couple of pages,” and summarized its intent: “It just... makes sure that, if, somebody has a foreign national driver's license, that's perfectly fine, but that can be used, for a providing a valid photo ID identification when, registering to vote.”

Committee members asked how such a license would appear and whether existing law allowing out-of-state or foreign-issued driving privileges to operate a vehicle would conflict with using those licenses to register to vote. Senator Barfoot replied that the bill would not change the state's rules on driving: “Under a foreign national driver's license, I believe that they would be able to drive under current law, and this would not affect that. This just simply says you cannot use that form of identification that's found in the code, a foreign national driver's license to register to vote because...”

One committee member raised a concern that different statutes and recent bills seem contradictory and asked whether the legislature coordinates before passing bills. The chair and sponsor noted the bill was intended to be narrowly focused on documentation used for registration.

The committee adopted the favorable report; the chair asked whether there was any objection to using the previous roll and the bill was reported onward.