Huntington Beach officials got approval from an Orange County Superior Court judge to move ahead with implementing voter ID rules.
Judge Nico Dourbetas’s Monday ruling could mean Surf City will be the first California city to mandate voter ID for in-person voting, despite state Attorney General Rob Bonta’s objections.
The lawsuit from Bonta focuses on a ballot measure approved by Huntington Beach voters last year, allowing city leaders to require IDs for in-person voting in Surf City.
The ordinance was quickly challenged by both Bonta and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who argued cities can’t override the state law banning voter ID.
[Read: CA Attorney General Sues Huntington Beach Over Voter ID Law]
Dourbetas ruled that they can, so long as the voter IDs are only required to vote in local elections and not statewide races.
That means if the city moves ahead with voter ID, officials could have to send voters two separate ballots – one for statewide races that require no voter IDs, and a second for local races that do.
“There is no showing that a voter identification requirement compromises the integrity of a municipal Election,” wrote Dourbetas in his ruling. “Municipal election results do not lack integrity because only residents of a municipality who are eligible to vote participated in the election.”
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, Attorney General Rob Bonta said they would be appealing the decision.
“Yet again, we believe the Orange County Superior Court got it wrong,” Bonta wrote. “We remain confident that Measure A will ultimately be struck down.”
In a statement last February, the appellate court also raised concerns about Huntington Beach’s elections being consolidated with the state’s if they implement voter ID.
“Municipal elections, including those in the City, are typically held in conjunction with statewide elections, and involve the same ballot, personnel, infrastructure, polling places, and voter registration,” the judges wrote. “Consolidation with the statewide elections takes the City’s municipal elections outside the home rule doctrine.”
Huntington Beach Mayor Pat Burns and City Attorney Mike Vigliotta said the city would continue the fight in court to ensure voter ID moves ahead.
“We will not back down in our efforts to secure local control over our local issues and will continue to fight for the City,” Burns wrote in a Monday statement.
It’s one of the few issues where the city has won in court against the state of California over a series of lawsuits regarding voter ID and housing, with the city’s legal team arguing that as a charter city, Huntington Beach has the power to write its own local rules.
Monday’s ruling came after Dourbetas previously said he couldn’t rule on the issue because the city hadn’t written its specific rules on how voter ID would be rolled out yet, but an appellate court ordered him to make a decision in February.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at [email protected].