The silliest thing I have ever seen in politics is the official ballot measure argument against Proposition 39, the voter ID initiative on California’s November ballot. If there was an Academy of Political Theater Arts and Sciences, the authors of that argument would be renting formal wear to pick up their awards for Outstanding Comedy Writing in a Statewide Voter Information Guide.
You can preview it for yourself, through August 10, on the Secretary of State’s website at sos.ca.gov/elections/public-display. By law, all materials submitted for the Voter Information Guide are open to public examination for a period of time before they’re finalized. This allows rational people to file legal challenges, although absurdity may not be grounds for removal, if only because it would overwhelm the state courts.
Thirty-six states currently have voter ID requirements. Twenty-four require a photo ID to vote and 12 require an ID but not a photo. Did any of those states “undo our freedom and democracy” as the authors of the argument assert “Trump” wants to do in California with the voter ID measure that more than 1.3 million California voters signed to place on the ballot?
If 36 states have turned authoritarian since they started verifying that voters are eligible to vote, I haven’t been able to find any news reports of it.
This line in the argument will have audiences rolling in the aisles: “Don’t let California become the next state where politicians pick which voters count.” It was only last year that California’s majority party rushed a special election to throw out citizen redistricting so politicians could draw new congressional districts that favored themselves, picking which voters count.
Voter ID is a reasonable method of preventing voter impersonation and ballot-box stuffing. These are very old methods of tampering with elections, and they have to be prevented, because there’s no way to get fraudulent ballots out of the count even if fraud is later discovered.
Did you see the video of signature collectors telling people on the streets to sign someone else’s name on initiative petitions? The false identities came from the voter file, which every campaign can obtain. Suppose fraudsters wanted to pay people to go to the polls and vote under someone else’s name. Do you know what prevents that from happening?
Nothing.
It’s not legal, of course, but there will be no evidence that it happened, and no way to get that ballot out of the box even if the fraud is discovered. If the real voter shows up later, that person will be told, “You already voted” and will be given a provisional ballot that will be verified later. Here’s how: county election workers check the records for the answers to two questions, “Is the voter registered?” and “Did the voter already vote?” If the answer to the second question is “yes,” the provisional ballot is not counted.
Voter ID fixes that vulnerability to fraud. On mail ballot return envelopes, voters will write the last four digits of an ID number, which provides a method for county election workers to quickly verify that the ballot came from an eligible registered voter. In California, voter registration forms already ask for a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number, so the counties have access to this data to verify mail ballots. A driver’s license or Social Security number is not required to register to vote, and Prop. 39 requires the state to provide, upon request of an eligible voter, “at no charge, a voter ID card for use in casting a ballot.”
Thirty-six states have determined voter ID to be a reasonable method of preventing ineligible voters from canceling out the votes of eligible voters. It’s hard to argue otherwise, so the ballot argument against Proposition 39 is a slapstick pie fight of insults against President Trump, full of words like “revenge” and “accomplices” and “conspiracies.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta pitched in to help the opponents of Proposition 39 by giving it the Nazi-sounding ballot title, “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.” Actually, the measure “prohibits persons” from voting unless they present government-issued identification, including “persons” who are not citizens and not eligible to vote.
President Trump recently gave a speech to the nation in which he discussed newly declassified documents showing that U.S. intelligence agencies knew that China acquired 220 million U.S. voter files, including names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences and other sensitive information that could be used for nefarious purposes. This began during the 2020 election cycle, according to the White House documents, and the intelligence agencies downplayed or suppressed this information.
Whether China has already used any of this information is a separate question from whether the information could be used in the future to meddle in an election. China’s theft or other acquisition of intellectual property has long been a cause for concern. If the possession of voter data is combined with the ability to mass-duplicate somebody else’s intellectual property, could fake mail ballots be a threat to change the outcome of a local, state or federal election?
If you think the concern about potential foreign interference in our elections is only a fever dream of red states or red hats, think again. Alexander Hamilton warned of “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils” in 1788. He wrote in Federalist No. 68 that the Constitutional Convention “guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention.”
Hamilton was explaining that the newly devised Electoral College was an obstacle to such “cabal, intrigue, and corruption” because the electors would be temporary and dispersed throughout the nation, preventing foreign agents from identifying them in advance for influence or bribery.
“If the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent,” Hamilton wrote.
The same can be said for voter ID laws. Alexander Hamilton might have campaigned for Proposition 39.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley