California Rings In The fresh Year With fresh Push To Block Voter Identification

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In California, Democrats are ringing in the New Year with a new push against voter identification. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has been hammering Huntington Beach because the city recently amended its municipal laws to require basic voter identification.

While voters overwhelmingly support voter identification, Democrats in California recently passed a law making it a crime to ask for voter identification at polling places. Now, Bonta is asking for an appellate court to intervene to prevent Huntington Beach from asking for IDs before people vote.

After Huntington Beach passed Measure A requiring voter identification in 2026, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning voter identification requirements. Bonta then sued the city but the California Superior Court ruled it too soon for a lawsuit. California Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas wrote that “this matter is not ripe for adjudication, as [the change to] the City’s Charter is permissive and discretionary in character, and thus currently presents no conflict with state elections law.”

Bonta, however, wants a ruling to prevent voter identification before the 2026 elections.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber insisted that California residents are already required to verify their identity when they register to vote, but the city argues that it does not mean that the person voting is that same person.

Democrats have continued to block voter identification laws and policies despite Gallop and other polling showing as much as 80 percent of Americans support voter identification laws across party lines. The Biden Administration was widely criticized for its effort to prevent Virginia from removing the names of people who previously stated that they were not U.S. citizens.

Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls.

While Weber denounced the laws as a form of voter suppression, there is no evidence that such laws have had any such material effect.

Indeed, President Biden and Democrats widely denounced voting laws in states like Georgia as “Jim Crow 2.0,” but under these laws, Georgia and other states set records in the turnout of voters.

Bonta’s actions show that Democrats will not yield on the effort to prevent voter identification at polling places. Instead, they seem to be doubling down with less than a third of Americans supporting the effort.

So much for political resolutions to realign the party after the election losses in November.