Republican organizers in California announced they have gathered enough signatures to place a measure that would require voters in the state to present identification every time they vote and for election officials to verify that registered voters are US citizens on the ballot this November.
Proponents of the measure announced that they have collected 1.3m signatures on a petition to put the issue on to the ballot for a vote in the midterm elections, surpassing the 874,641 signatures needed under California state law. Officials must now verify the signatures.
Under the current law, Californians are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail. They are, however, required to provide identification when registering to vote. Voters must also swear under penalty of perjury – a felony – that they are a US citizen eligible to vote.
The campaign for tightened voter identification laws in California has largely been spearheaded by Carl DeMaio, a Republican state assembly member. DeMaio received fundraising assistance from Julie Luckey, mother of tech entrepreneur and Donald Trump supporter Palmer Luckey. Californians for Voter ID, the campaign committee founded by Julie Luckey, raised nearly $10m to support the ballot measure, according to DeMaio.
California’s ballot measure coincides with a national push from Republicans to tighten voting eligibility. In February, the House passed the Save America Act, which would require proof of citizenship during voting registration and significantly inhibit mail-in voting. After passing 218 to 213 in the House, the legislation has since been held up in the Senate.
In his State of the Union address, Trump once again baselessly accused Democrats of voter fraud. “They want to cheat,” he said of Democrats. “They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that their only way to get elected is to cheat. And we’re going to stop it.”
Trump has continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged against him in favor of Joe Biden, though he has not questioned the integrity of the 2024 presidential race, which he won against Kamala Harris.
Opponents of the California measure include the ACLU of Northern and Southern California, California Common Cause, Disability Rights California, the League of Women Voters of California, the Asian Law Caucus and the California Donor Table.
“This initiative is about advancing Trump’s agenda to sow chaos in our elections and keep eligible Californians from voting,” Julia Gomez, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, said in a statement.
“The state already verifies voters and protects ballots at every stage of the process, and there is no evidence to justify new barriers. We’re confident that Californians will see it for what it is and reject this blatant power grab to block our votes from being counted.”
California’s legislative analysts office, a nonpartisan entity providing fiscal and policy advice to the state legislature, estimates that the new requirements under the proposed ballot measure could potentially cost state and local governments “tens of millions of dollars to the low hundreds of millions of dollars” annually.
