Have you seen the memes about Olive Garden's Pasta Pass? I've seen a couple of these in the past few days.
Fact check: True. pic.twitter.com/Cv3A5HCRVb
— Jim Walsh (@JimWalshLD19) July 21, 2026
Here's the shocking part. This is actually true. Of course anyone can go to Olive Garden and buy pasta but they do have this special offer called the Pasta Pass which is limited to 10,000 buyers. Buyers get unlimited pasta for 13 weeks, but the company made it clear that you can't simply give your Pasta Pass to someone else in your family or a neighbor. To prevent this, you have to show photo ID when you use it. Here's the company announcement explaining this.
What you need to know before the Pasta Pass sale starts tomorrow, July 16 at 2 p.m. EST! ⏰ pic.twitter.com/INCEaE4tiU
— Olive Garden (@olivegarden) July 15, 2026
No. The Never-Ending Pasta Pass is only for use by the Passholder whose name is printed on the Pass. Passes are personalized and non-transferable. Passholders must present a valid photo I.D. along with the Pass at the time of ordering.
— Olive Garden (@olivegarden) July 16, 2026
"Passholders must present a valid photo I.D...at the time of ordering." And that right there is where the memes started cropping up. You need photo ID to use your Pasta Pass at Olive Garden but it's not required to vote in a number of blue states.
This narrative must really be hurting Democrats because left-leaning media types are rushing to forward to denounce it today. Here's Aaron Rupar doing his thing, mocking Steve Scalise for repeating this.
Scalise: "For God's sake -- you can't get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture ID! Why not be able to show a picture ID to vote?" pic.twitter.com/h8rpARkc8v
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 21, 2026
And Jim Acosta is jumping on the bandwagon.
https://t.co/aMTwBBcwYq pic.twitter.com/WtuAyijgZF
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 21, 2026
And Molly Jong-Fast...all the really smart people.
I’m pretty sure you can order at the Olive Garden without a picture ID https://t.co/n52HhQHKuw
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 21, 2026
This guy at least admits the Pasta Pass thing is real:
Steve Scalise thinks Americans are stupid.
— BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ (@mmpadellan) July 21, 2026
1. You don't need photo ID to "get pasta at Olive Garden"
2. Unlike voting, pasta is NOT constitutionally protected
3. The "Never-Ending Pasta Pass" requires a photo ID. Unlike the Save Act, it DOES NOT require a passport. Note how… https://t.co/jdyNfe7Zid
What he doesn't mention is that the Save America Act doesn't require a passport. You can use a birth certificate and a photo ID instead.
In any case, it's not just online lefties who are going on the attack today. A memo must have gone out because the NY Times is also accusing Republicans of seizing on this unfairly.
...the pasta behemoth Olive Garden brought back its popular Never-Ending Pasta Pass, and informed customers that a photo ID would be needed to use it.
Thanks to a social media post — what else? — these two separate, seemingly unrelated events became intertwined, as Republicans spun up a buzzy but misleading talking point claiming that Olive Garden polices its bottomless pasta deal more tightly than the United States does its elections.
The claim misrepresents both voter ID laws and the multibillion-dollar casual dining chain’s rules surrounding unlimited breadsticks and limitless spaghetti. But it has nevertheless circulated wildly online, at the Capitol and at the White House, in the latest example of a corroded political discourse that often trivializes the weightiest topics, like comparing voting rights to fettuccine.
Here's the seizing part.
“Passholders must present a valid photo I.D. along with the Pass at the time of ordering,” Olive Garden wrote on social media.
And just like that, Republicans had their latest and perhaps most appetizing talking point in their campaign to shame Democrats for opposing strict new measures that would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and limited forms of identification at the polls.
Here's the correction the Times offers:
The comparison is highly misleading. Three dozen states require voters to show identification to vote in person, including 23 that require a photo ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Isn't that what the meme showed? It didn't say no states require voter ID, it said that some do not.
Democrats have scoffed, arguing that Republicans are revealing how little they value Americans’ constitutional right to vote by equating it to a promotional card available to customers with cash to spare and the fortune to log onto a restaurant’s website at the right time.
Have you ever been to Olive Garden? The idea that it's a restaurant for the privileged upper classes with fancy IDs is pretty silly.
And of course the scoffers (and the Times) are intentionally missing the point. The point isn't that voting is as insignificant as free pasta. The point is that voting is a lot more significant than free pasta but isn't treated that way by some states which do less than Olive Garden does to secure it.
The Washington Post has a brief story up today as well. Their story doesn't try so hard to ignore the obvious point Republicans are making.
House Republicans have adopted that last detail in their push for stricter national voter ID laws, arguing that if Americans have to show a photo ID to eat never-ending pasta at the chain, they should also be required to show a photo ID to cast a vote...
Representatives for Olive Garden did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the chain has stated on X that to access the Never-Ending Pasta deal, customers must present their personalized and non-transferrable pasta pass alongside a photo ID to prevent fraudulent pasta sales.
Anyway, the left is doing what it always does when a story or a meme is hurting them with the public, turn it around and make it into a "Republicans seize" story instead.
Update: The Times published this and put it directly below the Pasta Pass story on their front page.
Roughly 400 noncitizens voted in New Jersey after about 6,600 residents were improperly registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 because of a software error at the Motor Vehicle Commission, Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced on Tuesday.
All of the people affected had disclosed that they were not citizens when registering for either a driver’s license or ID, but were nonetheless placed on the voter rolls in error.
Those people will be removed from the voter rolls. The governor said that they may now face federal prosecution or unexpected hurdles — “through no fault of their own” — as they work toward becoming citizens.
Too bad there's not some form of check when people vote.
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