Huntington Beach voters will soon decide whether they want to require people to show ID to vote in city elections.
The ID requirement is the heart of Measure A — also known as Charter Amendment Measure No. 1 — is one of three measures on the city's March 5 ballot. Measure A also asks voters if they want the city to monitor ballot drop boxes and add more in-person polling locations.
The measure is one of the first big tests of residents' feelings about the city's sharp turn to the right under the leadership of an ultra-conservative city council majority, elected in 2022.
Supporters say Measure A would restore voters' trust in the election process and ensure that only registered voters are casting ballots.
The proposal has set off alarm bells among voting rights advocates and state leaders, who point to evidence that voter ID requirements disproportionately impact low-income people and non-white voters. They say the state and county already have robust measures in place to ensure voters are who they say they are.
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Local opponents also worry the ID requirement could come at a high price to taxpayers, for example, if the city has to defend it in court.
Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark and her three conservative colleagues on the city council crafted the measure and voted in October to put it on the ballot. Van Der Mark, who is Latina and says she came from a low-income, minority community, told LAist she's offended by opponents' insinuation that requiring voter ID is "racist."
"To me, it was insulting for them to say that just because we were poor, or maybe had a little more melanin, we weren't capable of getting IDs," she said.
If voters approve Measure A, it would change the city's charter (like a Constitution for cities) to read that the city "may verify the eligibility of Electors by voter identification" in municipal elections starting in 2026.
The city council changed the language from "shall verify" to "may verify" while finalizing the measure for the ballot. Van Der Mark told LAist if the measure passes, the city council would then have additional discussions about how to implement it.
The ballot measure does not specify what type of ID the city might require voters to show. It also doesn't specify whether ID would be required only at polling places or also with mail-in ballots. (Van Der Mark told LAist the intention is that it would apply only to voting in person).
Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the vague language raises questions about who might be affected by the measure, if it passes, and how vulnerable it might be to legal challenges.
"If you require a single card, like a driver's license, that's a lot more restrictive than if you require some other form of proof that you are who you say you are," Levitt said. "And I don't think this proposed charter amendment gives the voters any real sense of whether the city council is inclined to be permissive or restrictive or none of the above."
California puts the bulk of its voter identification efforts on the registration process, Levitt explained. When registering to vote, you are asked to provide your driver's license number, state identification number, or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
You also have to sign an affidavit. Lying on a voter registration affidavit is punishable by up to three years in prison.
If, when registering to vote, you do not provide your driver's license number, state ID or social security number, you must provide additional identification in order to vote for the first time at a polling place or by mail.
The potential types of identification you can show is extensive (here's the list) and includes a photo ID issued by the military, a school, health club, insurance plan or public housing development; or an up-to-date document that includes your name and address, such as a utility bill, bank statement or government paycheck.
Elections officials — in Orange County, this is the O.C. Registrar of Voters — are also required to verify that the signatures on vote-by-mail ballots and provisional ballots match those in voter registration records.
All of these measures put together are California's way — in conjunction with federal voting law — of "trying to strike a balance between having a secure election and an accessible election," said Caltech political science professor Michael Alvarez.
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Measure A faced legal threats even before ballots were mailed out.
California's attorney general and the state's top election official warned Huntington Beach that requiring voter ID would violate state law. In a joint letter to Huntington Beach officials in September, before the city council's vote, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote that by requiring "a higher standard of proof than set out in the Elections Code," the proposal would likely violate the state's prohibition against "mass, indiscriminate, and groundless challenging of voters."
They said if the measure is implemented, "we stand ready to take appropriate action to ensure that voters’ rights are protected, and state election laws are enforced."
In a Sept. 28 city council meeting, Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates called the legal arguments in the letter "specious." He noted that state law grants charter cities like Huntington Beach authority over the conduct of city elections.
Then, in November, a Huntington Beach resident challenged the measure in court, seeking to keep it off the ballot. They argued that requiring voter ID violates state election law and Californians' right to vote.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas ruled that voters should be allowed to weigh in on the measure first. If voters approve it and the city begins implementation, then it may be appropriate for the court to weigh in on whether it violates the Constitution, Dourbetas ruled.
Former Huntington Beach Mayor Connie Boardman, who's campaigning against Measure A, worries about the unknown cost to taxpayers of implementing a voter ID requirement — and likely getting sued over it.
"What's going to be cut to pay for this?" she said in an interview with LAist. "The council has put something on the ballot they want the voters to approve, but they can't tell us how much it's going to cost," Boardman said.
Still, some estimates have been put forth.
Putting the initiative on the Mar. 5, 2024 primary ballot is costing the city $327,428 to $391,628, according to an initial estimate that O.C. Registrar Bob Page shared with LAist.
The cost to taxpayers could skyrocket from there, especially if the registrar's office can't or won't continue to run elections for Huntington Beach, as it currently does. It's generally much cheaper to do this than for a city to hold its own election.
Page told LAist he can't comment on the matter because he is conducting the current election.
Gates, the city attorney, wrote in his analysis of Measure A for voters that it would lead to an "undetermined" increase in costs to the city.
But last year city staff made initial calculations of at least some of the costs.
They estimated it would cost at least $69,000 to train and deploy poll workers to check voter IDs.
If the city has to run its own elections rather than continue to rely on the Orange County Registrar of Voters, staff estimated it would cost an additional $1.35 million to $1.69 million for the city to hold its first stand-alone election in 2026.
That includes $664,000 to $858,000 for initial startup costs, including purchasing equipment, and $689,000 to $832,000 in recurring costs per election, according to the staff report.
In comparison, the city paid the registrar's office $303,656 in 2022 to put local races (four city council seats, the city attorney, and three city measures) on the November general election ballot.
Huntington Beach's annual budget is approximately $500 million.
In a news release that accompanied the warning letter to Huntington Beach officials, the Secretary of State noted that voter ID requirements have historically been used to disenfranchise eligible voters, especially low-income people and people of color.
Alvarez, the Caltech professor, said unequal treatment of voters can show up in more subtle ways when voter ID is required at polling places. For example, he said, when polling places are run by neighborhood volunteers, a poll worker may not bother to ask for ID from someone they know, but require it of someone they don't recognize.
"In many cases, that stranger may be a person from a marginalized community, maybe somebody who they're not familiar with," Alvarez said. "That's an easy way where these kinds of policies can be applied in an unequal manner."
He said requiring voter ID at the polls can also snarl the voting process in other ways, "ranging from disturbances that arise when people don't want to show their ID or get turned away to, again, the possible discriminatory use of these requirements, to people forgetting and just not having the government-issued ID when they show up to vote."
Documented instances of voter fraud are extremely rare in California, according to both Alvarez and Levitt, the law professor.
A Heritage Foundation database of voter fraud turns up just 17 cases in California since 2020. Fifteen of the cases resulted in criminal convictions. One election, the 2021 city council run-off election in Compton, was overturned because of fraud. (The organization’s website notes that the fraud database is not an exhaustive list but rather “is intended to demonstrate the vulnerabilities in the election system and the many ways in which fraud is committed.“)
"What problem are they trying to solve?" Alvarez asked.
The voter ID proposal is one of many actions that have rankled state officials and local opponents since an uber-conservative majority took control of Huntington Beach's city council in 2022.
The council has also sued the state over housing laws, banned the Pride flag from city flagpoles, restricted minors' access to books about puberty and sexuality and, most recently, passed a resolution supporting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in his fight with the Biden administration over border policy.
The three-member Democrat minority bloc on the city council has opposed all of these actions, but has been unable to stop them.
Last year, an ad hoc committee made up of Van Der Mark and fellow council members Pat Burns and Tony Strickland proposed the voter ID requirement, among other changes to the city's charter.
In a phone interview, Van Der Mark noted that other states require voter ID at the polls. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show ID before voting in person.
"It's not a novel concept," Van Der Mark said. "Other states are already doing it. We're just asking to do it as a city."
She told LAist her impetus for supporting the voter ID rule is to restore residents' confidence in the election system.
"A lot of people are not voting because they say, 'My vote doesn't count. I keep voting and we just keep losing.' If asking for ID will restore the faith in our elections to where people are going to get out and vote, then we should do it," she said.
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