A California lawmaker is leading an attempt to place an initiative on the 2026 ballot to require voter ID as a statewide constitutional amendment.

Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio of San Diego is seeking volunteers to help gather signatures and raise funds to let voters decide on two issues: whether citizenship should be verified at the time of voter registration and whether IDs should be required when casting a ballot. The petition is set to begin collecting signatures later in 2025.

“I know that the system is corrupt and is not going to want to reform itself from the inside,” DeMaio told The Epoch Times, referring to his proposed legislation with similar goals that failed to pass.

Assembly Bill 25, coauthored in December 2024 by DeMaio and then-Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli, sought to require citizenship documentation for registered voters.

“[AB 25] would bring California in line with 28 other states that require voter ID,” DeMaio said at the April 9 Assembly Committee on Elections. “Let’s show all Californians that this is not a partisan issue, that we want to restore public trust and confidence.”

While committee members agreed that restoring trust in the election process is important, some said voter ID is not the solution.

“This bill would impose major new barriers to voter participation without a shred of evidence that voter fraud is a significant problem,” said Democratic Assemblywoman Gail Pellerin. “California has voter ID laws.”

Current California law does not require voters to show identification at the polls, but voters are asked to affirm “under penalty of perjury” that they are U.S. citizens when signing their voter registration.

AB 25—which would have amended the state Constitution to include a Section 2110 in the Elections Code to require proof of citizenship—failed to pass the committee process and was denied reconsideration.

In 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that banned local governments from establishing laws that require voter identification. The legislation, Senate Bill 1174, was in response to a measure adopted in the city of Huntington Beach that would require election officials to verify IDs at polling stations.

In response, Huntington Beach sued the state, and the Orange County Superior Court upheld the city’s voter ID law. However, the state filed for an appeal on May 28, asking a state appellate court to reconsider the lower court’s ruling.

DeMaio’s grassroots-led effort would place this issue in the hands of voters rather than lawmakers. The voter ID initiative was launched in March 2025 as part of his Reform California organization, which he created in 2003 as a political action committee prior to becoming an elected official.

The initiative will begin collecting signatures for the petition in October 2025 and will have 180 days to gather over one million signatures. The goal is to provide more signatures than the minimum requirement in case any are disqualified during the verification process, according to DeMaio’s recent update announced through his podcast.

Under California law, 874,641 certified signatures are required for a statewide constitutional amendment to qualify for the 2026 ballot. That number is based on 8 percent of the total votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election, according to the state Constitution. The signed petition is submitted to the California Secretary of State, who then submits the measure in the next qualifying election.

“This is how we build a movement, a grassroots movement to take back our state, starting with the enactment of a California voter ID initiative in 2026,” DeMaio said in his podcast. “It’s going to take all of us.”

The voter ID campaign is one of many initiatives under DeMaio’s Reform California organization. Other ongoing initiatives aim to end tax hikes, reform school boards, and restore public safety, among other things.

His most recent initiative—the California Department of Government Efficiency—aims to unveil “wasteful spending.” California DOGE is not an official government department, but rather the name of DeMaio’s grassroots campaign calling on “whistleblowers, citizen watchdogs, and concerned taxpayers” to investigate and expose the state’s use of taxpayer money.

He told The Epoch Times that “educating California voters as to how corrupt and broken the system is“ allows the organization to ”lay the groundwork” to elect politicians who will introduce legislation that uses taxpayer funds for the state’s citizens.