Governor of California Gavin Newsom endorsed a new law that would bar local governments from adopting their own voter ID rules that many people in the state disagree with. The legislation that is SB 1174 was ushered in following the passage of an early this year Huntington Beach ordinance that sought to make voter identification mandatory for any election held in that city.
New state law preempts local attempts to allow use of voter ID unless required by state or federal laws on independence. This has elicited negative reactions from some people and especially software tycoon Elon Musk who took to twitter his displeasure. According to Musk, there are no ways, the law would make it even harder to prevent cases of voter fraud, however, advocates of the legislation assert that other measures are enough to make sure that the elections would be fair.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber had not only filed a complaint against the city of Huntington Beach as an attempt to prevent the implementation of the voter ID rule but also said the rule is precluded by state law. Bonta said that every citizen has a right to vote to produce the desired result without any fear and that Huntington Beach’s policy was against this basic democratic process.
Min, State Senator supporting the new law said that the new law would help avoid what can otherwise become a situation of an uncoordinated emergence of voting rules in the different cities of California. Min also raised an alarm over the mayhem that would prevail if different charter cities were to implement voting standards they wished based on what Min called “marginal conspiracy theories.”
As much as the legislation concerns all local elections in the California state, it also encompasses charter cities such as Huntington Beach that has their independent local laws. This all-encompassing strategy is designed to keep voting processes setional uniform over the course of the year as well.
Opponents of voter ID laws have made some of the problematic effects of such measures include impact on the low-income people, people of color, the elderly and disabled. But supporters of such laws believe them useful in combating impersonation, though rarely has the issue of voter fraud in California elections been documented.
Thus while the debate continues, Huntington Beach has not answered the ongoing lawsuit or the new state legislation. The voter ID measure passed in March by more than 50% of the city’s residents would have no operational templates due to the new laws enacted in the state.
This issue in California ties into another big talking point in the United States today – voting rights and election security. While states across the nation continue to work these problems out, California’s stance is obvious when declining to endorse local voter ID requirements and advocating for ease of casting a vote instead of jumping through hoops to prove one’s identity at the polls.
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