As Michiganders Consider Ballot Measure, Report Flags Big Costs Of Proof Of Citizenship Rules

Michigan Advance

December 11, 2025

As states, including Michigan among them, weigh additional restrictions to prevent noncitizens from casting a ballot, a report from a trio of organizations focused on racial justice and democracy warns that enacting these laws would carry a hefty price tag.

A joint effort between Dēmos, Campaign Legal Center and State Voices, the report examines the cost of implementing policies requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

While only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote in state and federal elections, conservative groups across the nation have raised alarms about noncitizens casting ballots, despite several reports showing that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. These fears have led to a resurgence of policies restricting ballot access to those who can demonstrate citizenship.

In Michigan, an initiative by Americans for Citizen Voting received approval over the summer from state canvassers and is undertaking a signature gathering campaign with the aim of getting the constitutional amendment on the 2026 general election ballot.

Though opponents of these regulations warn they risk disenfranchising eligible voters, with a disproportionate impact on newly married or divorced women, people of color, low-income individuals and military and overseas voters, the report focuses on the financial implications of putting them into effect.

“Our research shows that a [documented proof of citizenship] system can cost a state millions of dollars to implement, maintain, and defend,” the report states, pointing to necessary procedures after these laws are adopted, including changing voter registration forms, contacting voters about issues with their registration, overhauling online databases, implementing data privacy protections, retraining election officials and accounting for staff time to review proof of citizenship in applications and, if the law requires, purging voter rolls.

The report focuses on the cost of Arizona and Kansas’s proof of citizenship laws as the states with these types of laws in place for the longest period of time. However, the researchers note that the costs included within the report are meant to serve as a floor, as not all costs could be determined through public records, with budget reporting standards differing between Arizona’s 15 counties and Kansas’s 105 counties.

In Arizona, which instituted proof of citizenship requirements in 2004, the state’s Joint Legislative Budget Staff was unable to quantify the impact of putting the policy into place. However, the report’s authors pointed to the changes the state made to its voter registration system after the policy was put in place, with the state awarding IBM a $9.4 million contract to develop a new voter registration database.

The report also noted that a 2013 Supreme Court decision found that the state could no longer demand proof of citizenship from applicants using the federal form, creating a two-track system of applicants who submit federal forms being registered as federal-only voters, while those who used the state application are registered as full ballot voters and are eligible to vote in all elections.

While state and local officials did not respond to the report authors’ public record requests on the costs of splitting the system, they concluded that the two separate tracks must have entailed additional staff time, multiple versions of forms, additional upgrades to recording systems, and other expenses.

Since 2023, Arizona has spent $6 million in county funding for voter roll reviews while maintenance costs for the database rose from $1.3 million annually from Fiscal Years 2023 to 2025 to $2.34 million annually beginning in Fiscal Year 2026.

In Kansas, proof of citizenship requirements were enacted in 2011, with more than $350,000 in funding approved in the next two years to implement the law, which didn’t include the cost for any staff hours or resources needed to enforce the proof of citizenship requirements. It also does not account for the costs borne by the counties,

Both states have also incurred significant costs due to errors with their databases and legal challenges against the laws.

Alongside its assessments of the policies’ costs in Arizona and Kansas, the report also points to deficiencies in the financial analyses provided in other states considering these policies, including Michigan.

Earlier this year, House Majority Floor Leader Brian Posthumus (R-Rockford) put forth House Joint Resolution B, which would amend the state constitution to require individuals to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to present a photo ID or other form of identification when casting their ballot.

The report criticizes the lack of estimated costs in the nonpartisan House Fiscal Agency’s examination of the proposal, with the agency reporting that the resolution could bring “increases in personnel hours, paid wages, or FTE counts in city and township clerk’s offices” but offering no dollar amount for what implementation could cost.

Lata Nott, director of voting rights policy for the Campaign Legal Center and one of the report’s authors, argued that the agency could have put together a rough estimate based on additional staffing costs and the cost from when the state previously updated its voter registration system.

While Posthumus’s proposal failed to reach the two-thirds majority vote needed to advance to the Senate, the matter was tabled after Posthumus moved to reconsider the resolution, rescuing the policy for consideration at another session. A ballot initiative seeking to implement the measure has also received approval from the Michigan Board of State Canvassers to begin collecting signatures.

No matter where these types of policies are implemented, it’s safe to assume they’ll come with significant additional costs, Nott said, emphasizing that they are generally borne by counties and cities.

Neda Khoshkhoo, Dēmos’s interim director of democracy and another of the report’s authors, said that the states that implement these policies have a duty to do so correctly, as they have the potential to disenfranchise large numbers of voters.

“All the more reason why this needs to be done with proper resourcing,” Khoshkhoo told Michigan Advance.

Ultimately the big risks that come from not properly supporting local election agencies in implementing these laws are threats to data security and voter disenfranchisement, Khoshkhoo explained.

Legal costs are also an important factor to be considered when looking at the price of these laws, Nott said.

“You are introducing a new procedure, a new requirement that has a high potential to disenfranchise people,” Nott said. “That would and should lead to legal challenges.”

Nott pointed to the more than $2 million in settlements paid to plaintiffs challenging Arizona’s laws, while a lawsuit in Kansas cost the state $1.9 million, noting that these settlements don’t include the cost of the state’s own attorneys.

The more states skimp on providing resources on the front end, the more threat there is for devastating legal action on the back end, Khoshkhoo said.

Ultimately, both Nott and Khoshkhoo argued that these policies simply aren’t worth the cost, with Nott noting that Kansas’s proof of citizenship system disenfranchised 30,000 people while a review of Michigan’s voting records for the 2024 election found 15 credible cases of noncitizen voting in addition to a previously recorded case where a University of Michigan student from China registered and cast a ballot.

More than 5.7 million ballots were cast in Michigan’s 2024 general election.

“It just seems like there are better ways to spend the money that would be spent on [documentary proof of citizenship] laws in ways that wouldn’t carry with them the risk of depriving people of their fundamental rights as citizens,” Nott said.

The Michigan Advance, a hard-hitting, nonprofit news site, covers politics and policy across the state of Michigan through in-depth stories, blog posts, and social media updates, as well as top-notch progressive commentary. The Advance is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.