(Daily Signal)—As Congress struggles to pass the SAVE America Act, voters in states across the nation will decide this November on election procedures such as photo ID requirements, citizenship verification, and other election security matters.
Two states feature ballot initiatives with both voter ID requirements and calls for some form of citizenship verification and voter list maintenance. California, the largest state in the nation, has Proposition 39. The battleground state of Arizona has Proposition 144.
Also, voters in the swing states of Nevada, North Carolina, and the one-time battleground of Ohio will decide on voter ID in November. Voters in solidly red Oklahoma will consider adopting a voter ID requirement in an Aug. 25 election.
Citizen-initiated voter ID ballot measures are pending in Colorado and Michigan.
This week in California, Attorney General Rob Bonta changed the language of a voter ID ballot measure.
The language submitted by supporters stated, “Establishes additional voter identification and citizenship verification requirements.” The attorney general’s office altered the language to read, “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.”
“If California passes voter ID, it would be a huge win for three reasons. First, getting this initiative on the ballot in the first place shows that Californians are fed up with the election chaos forced on them year after year by far-left politicians who only seem interested in making a fundamentally broken system even worse,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, told the Daily Signal.
“Second, if this measure passes despite the blatant attempt by California’s attorney general to rig the ballot language and mislead the public into voting it down, it would prove just how commonsense voter ID is,” Snead said. “And third, a victory on this measure would finally bring the most basic protections to California’s elections—safeguards California politicians have actually tried to outlaw.”
A Bonta spokesperson defended the language change.
“When a measure qualifies for the ballot, the Attorney General’s office is required to issue a ballot title and summary and a condensed ballot title and summary,” Bonta’s spokesperson told the Daily Signal in an email.
The spokesperson added, “It is not uncommon for the ballot title and summary to change from the circulating version—and this year, all nine voter-proposed initiatives had changes. Our office properly exercised its discretion to provide further clarity to voters about Prop. 39’s chief purpose and points for the ballot stage.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently determined that as many as 190,832 noncitizens were registered to vote in California.
Another six states will decide on ballot measures related to citizenship requirements for voting. These states are Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Meanwhile, in Arizona, a proposed constitutional amendment states that only citizens may register to vote.
Municipalities and counties in California, Maryland, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. This type of measure would prevent that local option.
Voters have approved both state voter ID and citizenship requirements in recent years.
From 2018 to 2025, voters have approved 15 state measures providing that only citizens could vote. None of the measures failed, according to Ballotpedia.
“Citizenship verification has never lost at the ballot,” Ryan Byrne, Ballotpedia’s Ballots Team managing editor, told the Daily Signal. “I believe the lowest vote total it gained was in Kentucky, with 62%. The highest was in South Carolina with over 80%.”
Voter ID laws—despite widespread support in most polls—have been less fortunate at the polls, as three out of 12 measures between 2004 and 2024 were defeated.
Voters in Minnesota, Arizona, and Maine defeated the ballot measures, Byrne said. However, he added, this typically occurred when the measures added something beyond just ID. Notably, the Maine proposal in 2025 also had ballot drop box restrictions.
He noted that historically, progressives have pushed citizen-initiated ballot initiatives for election procedures, but this year, about 70% of the ballot initiatives on election administration were introduced by conservatives.
States are weighing other election-related matters as well. Virginia voters will consider a measure to automatically restore voting rights to felons upon release from prison.
Massachusetts voters will consider a top-two primary system to replace the party primary system. This would be similar to California’s process, where the top two vote-getters in a primary—regardless of party affiliation—advance to the general election. The Bay State also has a measure to allow Election Day voter registration.
Alaskans are also considering repealing their controversial ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to rank their top four preferred candidates. If no candidate gets 50% of the vote in the first round of counting, one candidate is eliminated, and counting continues with the voter’s second or third option.
California—in addition to its voter ID measure—is also considering measures to allow taxpayer-funded financing of state campaigns.
