Californians to be asked to approve new voter ID, verification requirements

California voters will be asked whether they want to tighten the identification and verification rules for voters.

The California Secretary of the State office confirmed Friday that the proposal was qualified for the Nov. 3 ballot. The measure seeks voter approval so people will be required to present government-issued identification at the polls or provide identifying information when voting by mail.

If passed, the state government will have to issue voter identification cards upon request and track citizenship verification rates for every election.

To qualify, the initiative needed 874,641 valid signatures, equal to 8% of votes cast in the 2022 gubernatorial election. Officials said the measure exceeded that threshold through random sampling.

The proposal was expected to be formally certified for the ballot June 25 unless it is withdrawn by its proponents.

 A fiscal analysis estimated one-time implementation costs in the tens of millions of dollars, with ongoing annual costs potentially reaching into the low hundreds of millions.

The initiative’s proponents include state Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R- San Diego County, state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach, and Donald J. DiCostanzo, a business owner.

“The California Voter ID Initiative is a common-sense and bipartisan way to restore the trust and confidence all voters should have in our election system,” DeMaio said in a statement. “Our measure simply holds government
officials accountable to maintain accurate voter lists and verify the identity of individuals casting ballots in our elections.”

Voting rights advocates have criticized the measure, saying it may make it harder for some people to cast ballots and could reduce overall participation.