California Elected Officials Support Voter ID Initiative

Some elected officials and campaign committees are advocating a voter ID policy for the 2026 election.

Security officials have voters go through a metal detector before entering the polling area at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., on Nov. 2, 2020. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A group of Californians is organizing to collect 1 million signatures to qualify in the 2026 election for a statewide constitutional amendment to pass an initiative to require voters to present identification documents in elections in the state.

The coalition includes elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as campaign committees.

Proponents of the voter ID measure say that identification requirements prevent in-person voter impersonation. Opponents say that very little such fraud exists and that ID requirements restrict the right to vote, impose unnecessary costs, and create administrative burdens on election officials.

Teresa Hernandez, chair of the Orange County Lincoln Club, a California donor network, believes that the initiative is a simple solution.

“You have some form of government ID that you get from the DMV—that’s either a license or just an ID card,” she told The Epoch Times on March 12.

Under the proposed rule, a voter would show his or her ID when voting in person. Someone who votes by mail would place the last four numbers of his or her driver’s license or Social Security card on the mail-in ballot. Hernandez said this requirement will restore voter confidence.

“I suppose there will be people that complain or don’t want it,” she said. “And the excuses I’ve always heard in the past [are] not everybody has an ID and/or not everybody can afford an ID.”

Social Security cards are free to apply for and replace, Hernandez noted, and the DMV charges only a nominal fee for identification cards.

“You cannot fly, you can’t go into government buildings, you can’t cash a check at a bank—you can’t do many things in the United States of America if you don’t have some form of ID,” she said.

Thirty-six states currently require some form of voter identification. Some require non-photo ID and offer different types of recourse for voters without ID. Many states and the District of Columbia use other means to verify voters’ identities, including checking signatures against information on file.

California state Assemblyman Bill Essayli agreed that establishing the voter ID requirement would improve voter confidence.

“There is a cancer growing in our democracy where too many people have lost confidence in our elections, and enacting a Voter ID law should be seen as the best bipartisan solution to this problem,” Essayli, who represents District 63 and is chairman of Reform California, said in a statement on March 11.

U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) also weighed in.

“Voter ID is a common sense step that improves election security, which is why it receives broad support among Democrats, Republicans, and independents throughout California. By passing a Voter ID initiative in California we can give voters increased confidence in our elections without unnecessarily restricting access to voting,” he said in a March 11 statement.

A Public Opinion Strategies poll, commissioned by some involved in the California voter ID initiative, found in late January that 68 percent of voters, including 93 percent of Republicans, 70 percent of independents, and 52 percent of Democrats, support a voter ID law.

In February 2024, the Pew Research Center found similar numbers—95 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of Democrats—support requiring photo IDs to vote. The Pew poll also found that 82 percent of voters favor requiring paper ballot backups for electronic voting machines, 81 percent support requiring people to show government-issued photo identification to vote, 72 percent support making Election Day a national holiday, and 69 percent support allowing convicted felons to vote once their sentence has been served.