California voters will decide in November whether to require photo identification to cast a ballot, making California the latest battleground in a long-running effort by conservatives to push voter ID laws that have been bolstered in recent years by Donald Trump’s repeated and unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud.
Nearly 1 million Californians signed on to support the ballot measure championed by Carl DeMaio, a Republican state representative from San Diego.
“Voters will be able to restore election integrity in our state, citizenship verification, auditing voter rolls – and yes, requiring ID to vote,” DeMaio said in a video statement posted to X.
Democrats have historically opposed voter ID laws, viewing them as unnecessary obstacles to casting a ballot that are likely to disproportionately affect voters who are low-income and people of color.
If the ballot measure passes, California voters would be required to present a photo identification when voting at a polling place, or submit a four-digit pin when sending a mail-in ballot.
Efforts to impose voter ID in solidly blue California have failed in the past. A poll released last month by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, however, found voters deadlocked on the issue, with 44% supporting it, 45% opposing and the rest undecided.
California is one of 14 states, along with the District of Columbia, that do not require voters to show ID when casting ballots, according to NBC News.
The California voter ID push has drawn national attention and money from Republicans, with the ballot measure committee raising $8.8m last year, according to Politico. Opponents are only beginning to mount a campaign to keep it from passing.
The California plebiscite comes as the White House is pushing for stricter federal requirements to cast a ballot. Trump demanded last week that Congress do away with the filibuster so Republicans can pass the Save America Act, which would impose a federal requirement to show proof of citizenship to cast a ballot.
Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, signed into a law on 1 April a state bill modeled on the stalled federal act.
Opponents of voter ID laws have repeatedly challenged them in federal court.
Last month, US district judge Loretta Biggs upheld North Carolina’s 2018 voter ID law after it faced challenges from civil rights groups who said it would unconstitutionally infringe on Black and Latino voting rights.
In a separate case last year, the ninth US circuit court of appeals struck down key provisions of voter ID laws passed by Arizona in 2022, after finding that several challenged provisions “are unlawful measures of voter suppression”.
