California Voter ID and Election Integrity Act of 2025.

Assembly Members DeMaio and Essayli's California Voter ID and Election Integrity Act proposes sweeping changes to the state's voter verification procedures and election administration processes. The legislation would require voters to present government-issued identification at polling places and provide documentation of citizenship when registering to vote, replacing the current system of citizenship verification by sworn statement.

The bill establishes new requirements for vote-by-mail ballots, mandating that voters include the last four digits of their government ID on ballot envelopes and requiring elections officials to verify this information matches voter registration records before counting ballots. County elections offices would need to process and count most ballots within 72 hours after election day, with exceptions for provisional ballots and those requiring signature verification.

To monitor compliance, the State Auditor would conduct regular reviews of county voter rolls and signature verification procedures. Counties where fewer than 98% of registered voters are verified as qualified electors, or that fail to meet ballot counting deadlines, would face restrictions on automatically mailing ballots to all voters in subsequent elections. Elections offices with signature verification error rates exceeding 5% would need to submit remediation plans to the Secretary of State.

The measure includes provisions for voter notification and cure processes when signatures or identification numbers do not match records. Counties would need to verify citizenship status for all currently registered voters by January 2026. The bill repeals existing prohibitions on local voter ID requirements while maintaining processes for voters to obtain and return mail ballots upon request, even in jurisdictions subject to automatic mailing restrictions.