Huntington Beach passes election resolution that critics say is unnecessary
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The Huntington Beach City Council on Tuesday night voted unanimously to pass a resolution seeking a legally valid and transparent election next year.
However, some members of the public questioned the need for Resolution 2025-64 and the accuracy of statistics contained within it.
Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns brought forth the resolution, which was supported by Mayor Pro Tem Casey McKeon, Councilmen Andrew Gruel and Butch Twining and Councilwoman Gracey Van Der Mark. Councilmen Don Kennedy and Chad Williams were absent.
“To me, there’s been so much question to the last several elections, and it bothers me,” Burns said. “The importance of our republic is that we have solid, trustworthy confidence in our elections. When you don’t have confidence, it discourages participation. I dread the thought of people not voting because they don’t have the confidence because our elections aren’t tight, our systems aren’t tight ... I don’t trust some of the things that I’ve seen.”
The city’s resolution asks for infrastructure compliance, voter verification, ballot security, accurate counts and proven outcomes.
Before the vote, the council heard a presentation by Unite 4 Freedom, a group which claims it is non-partisan and states that its objective is “protecting our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by assuring trustworthy elections.”
The unidentified woman making the presentation said the group, previously known as United Sovereign Americans, has examined the 2024 federal election in 30 states, conducting a forensic audit to expose potential legal violations. She said the group’s data team and cyber-security experts found more than 39 million defective registrations, and more than 14 million votes counted from ineligible voters.
The woman did not state her name publicly and declined to do so when asked by a reporter after the meeting. She maintained that she is just a volunteer, not a spokesperson for Unite 4 Freedom.
In terms of Orange County, the presentation claimed that 21.1% of ballots studied from the November 2024 election were “totally unverifiable.” That included 5.3% of voters that did not exist, 6.1% where the voter’s address was invalid, 4.3% where a Social Security number did not exist or was duplicated and 5.4% of a “vote to voter discrepancy,” where more voters were counted than the number of voters who voted.
An Orange County Grand Jury report released in January found no evidence of fraud or interference in Orange County’s 2024 general election.
“We’re not asking for anything else other than to uphold the existing laws,” the woman said. “Every legal voter should not be OK with allowing phantom voters to nullify real votes ... and they should not be OK with dogs [voting] ... your cats, your hamsters, your snakes, your lizards could still be registered.”
The comments referenced a recent case where a Costa Mesa Republican faced felony charges after she registered her dog to vote and allegedly twice cast ballots in the dog’s name.
Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said in an email that his office has requested but not received a copy of the Unite 4 Freedom studies, including their methodology.
“Their claim that about 20% of voters are non-existent or not eligible does not align with Orange County Registrar of Voters data that shows 99.9% of the 1.9 million active registered voters in Orange County have provided proof of identity in order to vote in federal elections,” Page said. “The remaining 0.1% of registered voters remain on the roll, because they attested under penalty of perjury that they are eligible to vote. Pursuant to state law, they are eligible to vote in state and local elections when there is no federal office on the ballot.”
Emails sent to the City Council by residents in advance of the discussion, as well as public comments made during Tuesday’s meeting, were critical of the resolution.
“Please don’t waste any more of the taxpayer’s money on frivolous nonsense,” Diane James wrote. “I read this agenda item and was looking for the background materials to understand the need for this, but there was none. There was only Mayor Burns’ statement agreeing with unfounded numbers stated by a biased organization.”
Resident Carol Daus said that political groups shouldn’t be brought in by the city. She added that she was particularly concerned that the resolution contained figures from Unite 4 Freedom.
“This is very unusual behavior,” she said in an interview. “A city should be non-partisan, should be focusing on city finances, infrastructure, public safety ... What is the City Council becoming? If it’s just a political arm of MAGA, then tell people that. Don’t pretend that this is a good opportunity to get objective data. This is all politicized.”
The Unite 4 Freedom presentation also delved into Proposition 50, California’s special redistricting election this fall, noting that it would group Huntington Beach and other county cities in with parts of Long Beach.
“Huntington Beach is definitely at risk of having their whole city being inundated by people who don’t have similar beliefs,” she said.
Van Der Mark said during council discussion that the resolution was needed.
“When we see an issue, we need to take care of it,” she said. “We can’t say, ‘Oh, our elections are not corrupt enough for us to take action.’”
Huntington Beach voters passed Measure A in March 2024, a charter amendment that allows the city to implement voter ID in Huntington Beach and institute more municipal control of local elections. The state of California subsequently sued Huntington Beach, stating that cities don’t have the authority to institute requirements like voter ID that could disenfranchise voters.
Surf City resident Mark Bixby also filed suit against the city.
The case is still tied up in the courts. Earlier this year, an Orange County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the city, and the state appealed the decision.
