As Huntington Beach weighs a voter ID proposal, two top state officials issue a warning

California’s top law enforcement and elections officials issued a warning Thursday to the Republican-controlled Huntington Beach City Council, urging it to reconsider a proposal to send a voter ID requirement to municipal voters.

In a joint letter, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said “we stand ready to take appropriate action to ensure that voters’ rights are protected, and state election laws are enforced.”

The city council is set to deliberate on the proposal at a special meeting on Oct. 5. A copy of that meeting’s agenda was not available online Thursday afternoon.

The precise framework of the proposed voter ID question is unclear, “and thus it is unclear whether or how the proposal might conflict with state law,” the letter to the city council notes.

However, Bonta and Weber asserted that requiring registered voters to present identification before they are allowed to vote conflicts with state law, which holds that voters need only present their name and address. The law already provides for a charge of perjury if an ineligible voter casts a ballot.

“This framework strikes a careful balance: it guards the ballot box against ineligible and/or fraudulent voters, while at the same time simplifying and facilitating the process of voting so as to avoid suppressing turnout and disenfranchising qualified voters,” the letter reads.

Huntington Beach’s proposal would “destroy this careful balance,” the letter continues.

Voter fraud is vanishingly rare in the United States. In 2020, an Associated Press review of voter fraud in six battleground states found fewer than 475 potential cases — out of 25.5 million ballots cast. A Loyola Law School study of elections between 2000 and 2014 found 31 instances of voter fraud out of more than 1 billion ballots cast.

Bonta and Weber said that the city council has not provided any basis for its voter ID proposal, “much less a basis supported by uniquely local concerns.”

“Abstract or hypothetical concerns about voter fraud, or concerns that state law does not strike an appropriate balance in this area, are insufficient to justify the city’s proposal.”

The Huntington Beach City Council proposal also calls for a program to monitor ballot boxes in the city. This, too, could be illegal, Bonta and Weber wrote.

“State law provides that county elections officials — not city officials — are responsible for establishing the number and location of ballot drop boxes, setting ballot collection and chain of custody procedures, and maintaining security at such locations,” the letter reads.

The proposal led to a raucous city council meeting Tuesday when it was discussed, according to the website Voice of OC, with council members Casey McKeon and Dan Kalmick at one point shouting at each other.

“You are making it more difficult for people without resources to vote,” Kalmick said, according to Voice of OC. “You’re creating a barrier that doesn’t exist currently for a constitutionally protected right.”

McKeon called Kalmick’s statement an “absurd argument,” according to Voice of OC.

“This is the only aspect of your life you don’t have to show an identification card,” he said.