We must pass voter ID — it is simply common sense

Voter ID has qualified for the California ballot — and it should be an automatic “yes” vote.

There is nothing unusual, much less racist, about requiring voters to show official ID when they arrive at the polls.

It is simply standard practice in democracies all over the world.

Democratic Party voters, like Republican voters, tend to support voter ID overwhelmingly in polls. That is because all Americans — even in these divided times — understand the need for fairness and transparency in elections.

But Democratic Party leaders, who like to talk a good game about “defending democracy,” have opposed voter ID — and bitterly.

The question is why. 

The answer cannot be that they have a genuine fear for the suppression of votes. Turnout has tended to increase, not decrease, in places that have adopted voter ID.

When left-wing groups have challenged voter ID in court, they have struggled to find any plaintiffs who have actually suffered the loss of their right to vote because they had to produce photo ID before casting a ballot.

So perhaps Democrats oppose voter ID because they have something to hide.

The Democrats depend on “ballot harvesting” to win in California. Voter ID may interfere with their turnout machine.

Whatever the reason, now is the time to put aside partisan politics and to support a measure that can only increase confidence in our elections, and the legitimacy of the results.

The California Voter ID ballot initiative is different than the SAVE Act that Republicans proposed in Congress, and that Democrats blocked in the Senate.

The California version is much more flexible, and adapts to the state’s system of vote-by-mail — which, all rhetoric aside, many Republicans quietly enjoy using as much as Democrats do.

For mail-in ballots, the new measure would simply require a four-digit PIN to verify identity.

That would replace the messy business of signature verification, which has been subject to manipulation in so many contested races over the years.

Thanks are due to Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, the San Diego conservative who is one of the most insightful legislators in Sacramento.

His organization, Reform California, took the lead in gathering some 1.3 million signatures for the voter ID initiative.

If California leads the way, and passes voter ID — and it should — then other “blue” states will follow.

This is a better approach than federal legislation that intrudes on state authority. It is a model for other states.

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One thing is crucial: The ballot initiative must be given a fair title and description on the ballot.

California state officials, many of whom are Democratic Party apparatchiks, are notorious for creating deceptive descriptions of ballot initiatives to mislead the public.

That is what happened to DeMaio’s last great effort in 2018, when he succeeded in placing a repeal of the gas tax hike on the ballot — only to lose when officials twisted the meaning of the proposal.

Many Californians today would rather that effort had passed.

Let us not have any regrets about voter ID, and get it done.