California voters will decide this November whether to approve Prop 39, a ballot measure that would tighten identification rules for both in-person and mail-in voting. If it passes, voters would have to show a government-issued photo ID every time they vote in person, while mail-in voters would write the last four digits of an ID number on the return envelope.
That is the change Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is pushing as he leads the effort behind the measure, calling Prop 39 a commonsense fix to rebuild trust in elections. The yes campaign has already raised more than $24 million, with a lot of that money coming from right-leaning billionaires, a sign that the fight over California voting rules is shaping up as both a political and financial campaign before the ballots are even counted.
The measure would go beyond the polling place. If voters do not have an ID, the state would have to provide a free voter ID card if they ask for one, and election officials would have to use government data to check whether registered voters are U.S. citizens. Those citizenship-check results would be published every year, giving supporters a way to point to the checks as proof of enforcement and giving opponents a new target for criticism if the data proves messy or incomplete.
That is where the argument over Prop 39 sharpens. Governor Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi oppose the measure, along with voting rights groups, who say it would block eligible people from voting to address a problem that research shows is extremely rare. Supporters describe the proposal as common-sense election protection; opponents see a higher hurdle for voters that could solve little while adding new paperwork, new costs and new opportunities for confusion.
State analysts estimate that carrying out the new voter ID system could cost California tens of millions of dollars, or even hundreds of millions of dollars, every year. That money would go toward the free ID cards, the systems needed to check citizenship against government data and the administration of the new rules for both in-person and mail ballots. For California voters, the choice this November is not abstract: it is whether to accept a stricter voting system now, or leave the current rules in place and keep the state from taking on a costly change that would touch every election.
