California voters reject Prop 39, stricter voter ID measure

California voters rejected an effort to introduce tougher voter ID requirements in Tuesday’s election, following a bitter campaign fought against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s battle with the state over alleged noncitizen voting.Proposition 39, which would have required California voters to show ID at the polls and introduce additional verification requirements for mail-in ballots, was rejected by 60% of voters with roughly half of votes counted, according to Associated Press.The measure has been championed by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio and his organization Reform California, who argue that tougher identification rules are a common-sense way to protect election integrity.DeMaio vowed in an interview Tuesday to keep up the fight for voter ID.“Whether voter ID gets done in this election or not, we will not stop until we restore trust and confidence in our elections,” DeMaio told The California Post.

“Voter ID will become the law of the state of California because it is common sense and bipartisan.”The voter ID initiative qualified for the November ballot earlier this year, setting up a political battle over election security in California.The prop 39 campaign received a major financial boost in October when Airbnb co-founder and billionaire former Democrat Joseph Gebbia donated $8 million to support the measure, giving its backers a substantial cash injection in the final weeks before the election.

A number of other prominent out-of-state backers have poured money into the campaign, with California seen as a ”testing ground” for better voter ID in a Democrat state.But Democrats have fiercely opposed the proposal, linking it to Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in the state.The vote comes as the Trump administration pursues legal cases against alleged noncitizen voters and clashes with California officials over their refusal to comply with federal demands to audit the state’s voter rolls.The Trump administration made a last-d...