(The Center Square) – Republican authors of a voter identification ballot initiative in California said on Thursday that the measure’s progress toward the Nov. 3 ballot is the fastest volunteer-qualified initiative in the state’s history.
The remarks came on the heels of the initiative qualifying for the ballot after the measure’s supporters submitted more than the required number of valid signatures – 1.02 million, significantly over the 874,641 required signatures.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,” said Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Huntington Beach and co-author of the measure.
“I just remind everybody that 36 other states have this as part of their laws," he told The Center Square on Thursday near the Capitol in Sacramento. "Every state that has had this actually had higher voter participation, not lower.”
Strickland added that many countries around the world have voter identification laws as well.
“IDs are part of our everyday life,” Strickland said. “I already used my ID once today. You need ID to open a bank account, to get prescription medication, to get on a plane. I’m very confident we get this done come November.”
He also noted he was told by state officials that the measure qualified faster for the ballot than previous volunteer-qualified initiatives.
Strickland’s co-author, Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, told The Center Square on Thursday that the measure emphasizes government agencies maintaining accurate voter lists and enacting citizenship verification.
“We believe the burden should be on government to do their damn job,” DeMaio told The Center Square. “Voter ID is supported by a majority of Democrats and a supermajority of independents. It is a bipartisan reform.”
Democratic lawmakers The Center Square reached out to this week did not respond or said they did not have any comments on the measure.
The measure proposes to amend the California Constitution to require voters to present government-issued identification at the polls when going to vote, or write the last four digits of a government identification number when voting by mail. The state would have to provide voter identification cards on request, and elections officials would have to report the percentage of each county’s voters with verified citizenship each year.
Current law requires new voters to present identification when registering to vote.
According to the California Secretary of State's Office, just preparing to implement the voter ID initiative would impose a one-time cost on state and local government agencies in the tens of millions of dollars. Those agencies could shoulder additional costs in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars if California’s voters pass the measure in November.
Democratic lawmakers The Center Square reached out to this week did not respond or said they did not have any comments on the measure.
According to a report from the National Conference on State Legislatures, 14 states, including California, don’t have any requirements to show an identifying document when voting. The other states are Hawaii, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine.
That report shows that a number of other states have varying levels of voter identification requirements ranging from no document required – like California – to strict photo ID. States with the strictest voter ID laws are Kansas, Michigan, Iowa, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio and New Hampshire, according to the report.
