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After a nearly five-month statewide signature drive powered by more than 18,000 grassroots volunteers, Reform California Chairman and Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, along with fellow proponents of the California Voter ID Initiative, officially submits over 1.3 million signatures this week across all 58 counties — triggering the formal validation process required to qualify the measure for the November 2026 ballot.
To mark the milestone, campaign leaders hold signature submission rallies in five major media markets across the state, underscoring the broad geographic and bipartisan support behind the initiative.
The submission of the signatures begins a county-by-county verification process that must be completed by May. Once certified, the initiative appears on the November 2026 statewide ballot.
The measure amends the California Constitution to require voter ID when casting a ballot, require election officials to verify the citizenship of registered voters, and maintain accurate voter rolls.
“The California Voter ID Initiative is a common-sense and bipartisan way to restore the trust and confidence all voters should have in our election system.
Our measure simply holds government officials accountable to maintain accurate voter lists and verify the identity of individuals casting ballots in our elections. Other states that have implemented Voter ID programs have seen an increase in participation in their elections — including an increase in minority voting.
Divisive politicians with partisan agendas will try to politicize this effort, but the fact remains over 70 percent of voters, including a majority of Democrat voters, support the initiative — and nearly half of the 1.35 million signatures we collected came from Democrats and Independents.
We look forward to expanding this bipartisan reform movement as we enter the passage phase of the campaign.” — Carl DeMaio, Reform California Chairman, California State Assemblymember, Official Proponent, Voter ID Initiative'
What should have been a celebration of the hard work of thousands of volunteers who collected the signatures turned into a divisive confrontation when paid protesters showed up with a narrative of lies to smear the common-sense ballot initiative.
The paid protesters were funded by a recently announced campaign committee that California Democrat politicians have created.
Democrat-controlled front groups like the ACLU, Common Cause, League of Women Voters, etc. are being touted as opposition coalition members - but the dark money funding comes from special interests and corporations who are currying favor with Democrat politicians.
DeMaio said the early opposition launched by Democrats underscores the need to wage an aggressive campaign to pass the CA Voter ID Initiative in the November election.
"Getting the signatures might turn out to be the easy part of this fight - now we need more volunteers and more resources to overcome Democrat politicians' dirty tricks and win the fight to pass the initiative in the November 2026 election," DeMaio concludes.
Contribute to the Voter ID Campaign Here: VoterIDInitiative.org
Volunteer for the Voter ID Campaign Here: www.ReformCalifornia.org/volunteer
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