Huntington Beach to appeal voter ID cases to United States Supreme Court
- Share via
Huntington Beach will try to take its attempt to possibly institute voter identification requirements all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
The conservative City Council unanimously voted in closed session Tuesday night to appeal a pair of congruent voter ID lawsuits to the top court in the land, City Atty. Mike Vigliotta reported, after the California Supreme Court declined to hear the city’s appeal last week.
“Polls show that over 80% of the country supports the common-sense idea of requiring voter ID to vote in elections,” Huntington Beach Mayor Casey McKeon said in a statement. “Identification is required to participate in most adult endeavors in this country. Therefore, voter ID should be required for the fundamental, time-honored sacred basis of a free society: Elections.”
In the March 2024 presidential primary election, Huntington Beach voters approved a charter amendment that allowed the city to implement voter ID. But later that year, the state passed Senate Bill 1174, prohibiting cities from requiring voters to show identification at the polls.
Meanwhile, state leaders and Huntington Beach citizen Mark Bixby sued the city in separate lawsuits, stating that voter ID was illegal and infringed on rights.
Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, but California is not one of them.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas ruled in April 2025 that voter ID didn’t compromise the integrity of a municipal election, but a three-judge panel of the state Fourth District Court of Appeal overruled that decision in a November ruling, citing the recently updated code.
In McKeon’s statement, he cited Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd. (2008), which upheld an Indiana voter ID requirement, determining that it did not violate the United States Constitution.
“We are optimistic that the U.S. Supreme Court will take up this fundamental constitutional issue, that voter ID does not violate the Equal Protection Clause,” McKeon said.
