Vulnerable Dem senator slammed for requiring photo ID at rally, but not to vote
A new attack ad from Republicans targeting U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is slamming the vulnerable Democrat senator for requiring entrants at his political rallies to show proof of identification, but arguing that identification requirements for voting are a form of voter suppression.
"Want to get into a Jon Ossoff rally?" the advertisement's narrator begins, before it goes into a montage of staffers at Ossoff's Feb. 7 rally asking for entrants' IDs.
"Don’t forget your ID" rally staff can be heard saying as folks walked into the Georgia International Convention Center located in metro Atlanta.
"Also, do you have your ID with you?" another staffer can be heard asking entrants in the video captured by a GOP tracker. "I’ll just grab your ID from you. Thank you so much," another said. "Please have your IDs ready, please, thank you."
Meanwhile, Ossoff has referred to attempts to establish stricter photo-identification rules for voting and voter registration in federal elections as "nakedly partisan, totally unworkable, [and] bad faith."
Ossoff's team declined to comment for this story.
On Wednesday, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed the latest iteration of a voter integrity law aiming at requiring stricter in-person documentation requirements, such as needing a photo-ID to vote. This bill is a broader and stricter version of the 2025 version of the bill which focused predominantly on registering to vote as opposed to the act of voting itself.
ONLY ONE HOUSE DEM VOTED IN FAVOR OF VOTER ID, PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN US ELECTIONS
Ahead of the vote's passage, one of Ossoff's Republican challengers in the upcoming U.S. Senate race in Georgia, Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., called out the incumbent Democrat Senator for "once [saying] that voter ID was 'right and appropriate,' [but] now supports his party as reframing it as 'voter suppression.'"
"The law didn’t change. Public opinion didn’t change. What changed was he – and other Democrat politicians like him – realized that illegal immigrants could no longer vote to keep Democrats in office," Carter asserted. "They oppose this bill because it chips away at their voting base; plain and simple."
Despite Ossoff's previous opposition to voter integrity laws, his campaign event framed the requirement for photo ID as a security measure.
"Due to security requirements … be ready to show ID that matches our RSVP list and these arrival instructions (printed or on your phone)," the campaign event’s confirmation email said.