While California voters are sharply divided along partisan lines when it comes to election integrity and voter fraud, new votes have broad support for politically imposed proposals to demand that governments provide government-issued identifications from President Trump and other Republicans register.
A new poll from the UC Berkeley Government Institute co-hosted by The Times shows that the majority of voters of both parties support evidence of citizenship requirements for registration. Most Californians also supported asking for government IDs whenever voters vote, but with a slimmer majority, and most Democrats oppose the idea.
Mark DiCamillo, co-director of the Berkeley IGS poll, said bipartisan support for first-time voters showing evidence of citizenship was outstanding, as many of the other poll findings showed the majority of Californians in conflict with Trump and his recent orders on his recent vote.
Still, DiCamilo said his biggest takeaway was a keen mistrust in the state’s electoral system, which he said the votes discovered among California Republicans should be “serious concern” for state election officials. While state Democrat voters are highly confident in the state’s election system and suspect common voter fraud, many Republican voters feel opposed, polls found.
“It’s important to me that Republicans in this state aren’t that view, and that’s something we have to deal with,” DiCamilo said. “Under the election system, we want both sides to board.”
Overall, the vote found that 71% of respondents supported new voters who must prove citizenship when registering, including 59% of Democrats. Just as almost all Republicans (95%) supported the proposal, with 71% of voters registering with other parties or as “no party preferences.”
Another proposal that requires voters to show evidence of citizenship whenever they vote, elicited support from the majority of voter respondents, but with 54% of support, they are much slimmer respondents. 88% of Republicans supported the idea, while around 60% of Democrats opposed it. While independents and Californians registered with other parties, 54% supported it.
Democrats in Sacramento have repeatedly rejected the state’s proposal for a stricter voter ID Act. This includes the recent weeks when Congress member Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego) shot down the voter ID bill. DeMaio also launched a campaign to set up voter IDs and evidence of citizenship requirements in the 2026 vote.
Demaio showed that his measures had “broad public support” in the vote. This would require both citizenship proof when registering for the first time and a photo ID to confirm identity with each subsequent time vote – and showed that California Democrats were “not in contact” with voters.
“Overwhelmingly, voters support this voting measure,” he said. “The only people who don’t support it? Sacramento politicians.”
The proposed voting law requires the current requirement that the voter’s email-in votes include the last four digits of the valid government-issued identification format, and that the voter’s signature has been verified.
The vote took place on April 21-28, about a month after Trump issued the March 25 executive order, and estimated that he would direct the state to slate the new election requirements, which Trump said was necessary to restore integrity in the US election, but many experts said it was outside his authority.
Trump has for years argued that voter fraud is spreading, including immigrants who are illegally in the country when the 2020 election was stolen from him and voter fraud is spreading. Neither is true.
Trump’s executive order says voters must show US passports, actual IDs, or other government-issued photo identification to register for the vote. The state also says that, as California and several other states now allow, it must limit the count of votes to those received by Election Day, not those consumed by then, but those received by Election Day.
The order also directs the Election Aid Committee, an independent, bipartisan organization outside the president’s control, mandating the requirements for proposed restrictions and other state voting systems, and revoking the certification of voting equipment in states that do not comply with it.
While some of Trump’s orders, including proof of citizenship requirements, have been blocked in federal courts, lawsuits challenging the orders continue. California is one of many states that California is suing. General Rob Bonta calls Trump’s orders “an attempt to gain blatantly illegal power and deprive voters of their rights.”
In a statement on the results of the poll, Bonta said that the majority of Californians can still be confident in the state’s electoral system despite having “spreading lies” over the years on voter fraud and other election issues. He said the state law “already includes robust voter ID requirements with strong protections to prevent voter fraud,” and his office is “committed to removing barriers to voter registration and encouraging greater participation in the Democratic process.”
Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder and County Clerk Dean C. Logan said in a court filing earlier this week that if left the Trump order, if left alone, “distracts time, resources and attention from other key departmental responsibilities and election preparations.” and the database participates in the site by site analysis of over 600 voting center locations to ensure that accessibility criteria are met. ”
Polls found Californians were primarily at odds with Trump’s attack on US election integrity.
Polls, for example, found that the majority of Californians, and the powerful Democrats, are rare in voter fraud, showing confidence in the integrity of the state’s voting system, opposed to efforts to control votes from states and counties, and against Trump’s proposal to ban mail ballot counts after Election Day.
Of the respondents who participated in the poll, 6,201 registered voters in the state – more than two-thirds, or 68%, expressed confidence in the overall integrity of the state’s electoral system. The same percentage opposed Trump’s recent proposal to ban counting votes received but not received by Election Day.
More than half (over 57%) said they consider state voter fraud to be very or rather rare, while 58% of a similar proportion said they were opposed to Trump’s proposal to the federal government to take control of state elections more strongly.
But in all these questions, the Californians were largely divided along partisan lines.
For example, 61% of Republican voters said they were not very confident or at all in the integrity of the state’s electoral system, compared to just 13% of Democrats. And 74% of Republicans said fraud was somewhat or very common in state elections, but polls found that only 14% of Democrats felt it was the same.
The majority of 58% of voters opposed the fact that more than three-quarters of Republicans support the move, yet still dominated more elections from the state.
And 57% of Republican voters supported Trump’s proposal to ban only 9% of Democrats from agreeing, although 57% of Republican voters have not received by election officials by Election Day, while 86% of Democrats disagree.
Rick Hasen, a voting rights expert at UCLA Law School, said the polls’ findings that included overall Californian confidence in the state’s election system, distrust in general fraud and opposition to federal takeovers, are consistent with other votes and what he expects.
“Most people in most states believe their state’s electoral systems are running well and that if there is any problem, they’re somewhere else,” he said.
Similarly, “Republicans have a much more cynical view of the process,” he said.
“Parents of the party tend to follow their elite, and top Republicans have been making false and unfounded claims about voter fraud for decades,” Hasen said. “It’s no surprise that it has spread to voters.”
Hasen said the results on citizenship evidence also make sense because “the voter IDs have been actively voting and therefore tend to vote actively to request evidence of voters’ citizenship.” However, he questioned whether poll respondents really understood the meaning of such requirements.
When asked, “Is it easy or difficult to present a government-issued photo ID as evidence of citizenship when voting in elections?” 93% of respondents said it was easy. However, many Democrats and most voting rights groups argue against it. The measure blocks voting because millions of US citizens lack the necessary documents that do not include photos or birth certificates that do not have many California driver’s licenses.
“I don’t think people are aware that many of the photo IDs issued by the government do not qualify. They certainly wouldn’t be qualified under the President’s proposed rules,” Hasen said.
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