SACROMENTO — A bill requiring a voter ID and citizenship registration was rejected by California lawmakers on Wednesday, but the legislative Republican sponsors have vowed not to give up.
Rep. Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) has announced that he plans to launch a campaign to qualify for the proposal as a statewide voting initiative for the 2026 election.
Demaio described his proposal as a nonpartisan issue when he came before a Congressional Committee on elections Wednesday morning. The bill failed in a 3-2 party line vote over concerns from opponents that more requirements would disenfranchise eligible voters and burn false claims that California’s elections are unsafe.
“We have the lowest level of public trust and trust in the election we’ve seen so far. Every poll shows that Democrats and Republicans should be considered a democratic issue, not a partisan issue,” DeMaio said at the hearing.
Most Americans have approved the requirement that voters identify citizenship and provide evidence, polls show. According to a Gallup poll last October, 84% of Americans support photo IDs, and 83% support providing evidence of citizenship when registering for the first time.
DeMaio also believes the initiative has gained widespread support in California, calling it “shameful” to kill the bill.
“Democrats, Republicans and everyone in between, [voters] Beware of our democratic health. They demand more integrity from our elections,” he said afterwards.
Bill AB 25 required people to provide certain civil rights documents when registering for a vote, and to present photo IDs before registered voters could vote in person. The law was co-hosted by Congressional member Bill Essayli (R-Corona), who was appointed US lawyers for Los Angeles and surrounding areas last week.
Legislative analysis of the bill revealed that it was unclear what documents could be used to prove citizenship. Actual California IDs can be obtained by permanent and temporary residents who are not citizens, and some people born on American territory, such as Samoa in the United States, can obtain US passports as American citizens, but are not considered citizens.
Currently, in California, those who are registering for the vote sign a declaration under perjury that they are US citizens and are eligible to vote, but do not need to provide evidence of citizenship.
DeMaio’s bill would have required Californians to vote by mail to provide the last four digits of government-issued identification numbers, such as Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. If the numbers do not match, the vote will be disqualified.
According to the National Assembly of State Legislature, 36 states have requested or require voters to show some kind of identification at the polling station, although laws vary with regard to photo IDs.
California is one of 14 states and uses other verification methods, along with Washington, D.C., to match signatures from the vote to information in voter registration files.
Dora Rose, deputy director of the California Federation of Women Voters, testified against the bill, said: It would disenfranchised a group of vulnerable people, she said — women, people with disabilities, communities of color, and seniors.
Changing the law could bring credibility to claims that voter fraud is becoming more widespread.
Chairman Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz), who voted against the bill, agreed.
“I hope that my committee colleagues will join me in rejecting unfounded attempts to erode public confidence in the California election,” she said. Pellerin suggests that if the elected state representatives do not believe that the state election is valid, they should resign.
Demaio’s Republican allies on the committee pushed back. David J. Tangipa (R-Fresno) said the argument that minorities are either too poor or not intelligent enough to secure government-issued IDs is offensive.
Last week, a coalition of California and other states sued the Trump administration to block the president’s recent executive order, which seeks to radically reshape national voting rules, including demanding voters be provided with evidence of citizenship, with state penalties that lose access to federal funds.
Atty, California. General Rob Bonta said Trump’s orders were an illegal attempt by the White House to strip the state of its power to govern elections.
Trump, who falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, says he argued that the US voting system is very outdated and that fraud and voting by non-citizen immigrants is a major issue.
Trump’s order requires that all US voters provide evidence of citizenship, such as passports and actual IDs, before registering to vote in federal elections, if endorsed by a court. Bonta said the president’s orders were clearly unconstitutional and it was up to the state to regulate and control elections, and California decided it was not necessary to request a voter ID.
“There is no evidence of voter fraud, there is no evidence that evidence of citizenship is needed to ensure the integrity of the election,” Bonta said at a press conference last week.
The California Demaio bill would also have reviewed other election laws in states that even counties that were posted on Election Day, which took a month in some counties. The bill required that all votes be counted within 72 hours.
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