California Republicans launch Voter ID ballot initiative for 2026

Republicans in California Efforts are being made to make voters show identity cards before voting.

Assemblyman Carl DeMaio is raising funds for the initiative through his grassroots organization Reform California. campaign 875,000 signatures are needed to appear on the ballot in 2026.

“Improving the voter ID process is not just about restoring internal controls, it’s about restoring people’s faith and trust in our democracy,” DeMaio told NBC Bay Area.

“People are concerned about how our elections are being conducted, and it is difficult to show and prove voter fraud because we don’t know how many votes are being cast fraudulently because there are no internal controls or checks,” he said.

The Trump administration is resurrecting ‘neighborhood checks’ for citizenship applicants that were last used in the Bush-era era

Republicans in California are pushing for a ballot initiative to require voter ID. (via Patrick T. Fallon/AFP Getty Images)

As of Wednesday, the petition has garnered over 300,000 signatures. The petition has 129 days to collect the remaining 575,000 signatures.

Across the US, 36 states have laws that require voters to present some form of identification to vote on Election Day. According to Ballotpedia, 24 of those require photo ID.

President Donald Trump Earlier this year signed an election integrity executive order that, among other things, requires voters to provide proof of citizenship. However, this attempt failed in court.

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In April, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kolar-Cotelli for the District of Columbia struck down parts of that order that dealt with voter identification requirements.

US President Donald Trump seeks to implement voter ID requirements through an executive order. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Kolar-Kotelli said Trump did not have the authority to issue such an order Constitution Gives control of election rules to Congress and states.

“Consistent with that allocation of powers, Congress is currently debating legislation that would affect many of the changes ordered by the President,” Kolar-Cotelli, a Clinton appointee, wrote in her order. “No statutory delegation of authority to the executive branch allows the president to short-circuit the deliberative process of Congress by executive order.”

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A Gallup poll conducted before the 2024 election found that 84% of US adult voters were in favor of requiring identification, and 83% supported requiring proof of citizenship when registering for the first time.