Huntington Beach Loses Appeal, Cannot Enact Its City Voter ID Law in Contravention of California State Law

voter id

See here.

From a press release:

The Fourth District Court of Appeal, Third Division, issued decisions in two companion cases striking down the Huntington Beach Voter ID Charter Amendment.  In Mark Bixby v. The City of Huntington Beach, et al., Nos. G065461 and G065499, Huntington Beach resident Mark Bixby challenged the Voter ID charter amendment, and the Secretary of State, through the Attorney General, later filed a similar challenge in The People of the State of California et al., City of Huntington Beach, et al., No. G065589.  The Court of Appeal heard arguments in both matters on October 22, 2025, and issued orders in both cases reversing the trial court’s judgment for the City and striking the Charter Amendment and prohibiting its enforcement.

The Court based its order on Elections Code Section 10005, adopted by the Legislature as SB 1174, authored by then-State Senator Dave Min, which expressly prohibited local cities from imposing a Voter ID requirement.  Huntington Beach city leaders nevertheless persisted in defending the Voter ID amendment, claiming that the law did not apply to Huntington Beach as a charter city.  The Court of Appeal decidedly disagreed with the City’s arguments.

The City will have a ten-day window to seek review in the California Supreme Court, once the decision of the Court of Appeal becomes final.  Barring any modifications in the Court of Appeal, that period of time is anticipated to be between December 4, 2025, and December 15, 2025.

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‘NAACP and Advancement Project Sue Virginia Over Illegal Rejection of College Student Voter Registrations”

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Press release:

National civil rights organization Advancement Project and the NAACP Virginia State Conference filed a lawsuit against the Virginia Department of Elections on October 31 for unlawfully disenfranchising college and university students, including those attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Recent reports indicate that several jurisdictions in Virginia are currently rejecting voter registration applications from students residing on campus because they did not include dormitory names or room numbers, despite otherwise providing valid campus addresses.

The impact reaches across colleges and universities across Virginia, from George Mason University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University to historically Black colleges and universities, including  Norfolk State University and Virginia State University. The NAACP Virginia State Conference has college chapters on all of the impacted campuses.

Advocates warn that the failure to provide timely and accurate guidance ahead of the November 2025 election could likely result in widespread disenfranchisement, rejected provisional ballots, and long lines at polling places as officials attempt to resolve discrepancies at check-in…

The lawsuit can be found here.

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“Ford Foundation’s New Leader Vows to Protect Elections and the Rule of Law”

authoritarian threats in US, election law biz, election subversion risk

Adam Liptak profile for the NYT:

The Ford Foundation, the nearly 90-year-old international philanthropy, is now in the cross hairs of the Trump administration, which has called for scrutiny of the organization as part of a broad crackdown on the left.

In her first interview in her new role, the incoming Ford Foundation president, Heather K. Gerken, said Friday that the foundation, which has a long history of supporting social justice and civil rights initiatives, was undeterred.

Her central priority, she said, was “defending the rule of law and protecting our election system.”…

Vice President JD Vance, himself a Yale Law alumnus, has long been a harsh critic of philanthropies that he said support liberal causes, and of the Ford Foundation in particular.

“Why don’t we seize the assets of the Ford Foundation, tax their assets and give it to the people who’ve had their lives destroyed by their radical open-borders agenda?” he mused in 2021 as a Senate candidate.

He has not let up. In September, Mr. Vance denounced the foundation by name in the aftermath of the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, suggesting the administration could go after its nonprofit tax status.

Asked about Mr. Vance’s comments, Ms. Gerken responded with a history lesson.

“When the Ford Foundation funded the civil rights movement, it was a source of controversy,” she said. “It was incredibly important that we were protected in doing that work. When the Ford Foundation stood up to protect free speech and dissent during the McCarthy era, it was incredibly important that we had the right to do that.”…

Ms. Gerken, for her part, insisted that protecting democracy is a nonpartisan goal.

“No one believes that an election system should not be free and fair,” she said. “No one believes that people should not have the right to speak. These are the bedrock commitments of any democracy, and it’s really important to hold fast to them.”

Asked for practical examples of what the foundation’s emphasis on protecting democracy would entail, Ms. Gerken pointed to securing the infrastructure of elections.

“We’re going to do everything we can,” she said, “to protect the ability of election administrators to carry out a free and fair elections, to make sure that every citizen has an opportunity to vote without fear or intimidation and that those votes are properly counted.”…

Ms. Gerken’s fellow election-law specialists said she faces a daunting task.

“The institutions of American democracy are being torched right now,” Professor Persily said. “The question for all of us working in the democracy space is to consider new institutions that might be built from the ashes.”

Pamela Karlan, another voting rights specialist at Stanford, said Ms. Gerken might set an example.

“The Ford Foundation could be a real leader in getting other parts of civil society to start speaking up and pushing back,” she said. “That’s already starting, but there isn’t a clear focal point and she might provide that.”

Ms. Gerken said she also took a long view.

“There isn’t just the work of now, of this moment, which is incredibly important,” she said. “We are also going to need to dream a new democracy into existence.”….

I’m so glad to see Heather in this role, and Ford’s commitment to helping safeguard American democracy. We in this struggle need all the help we can get.

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“Indiana Republican Tries Different Approach in Debate on Voting Maps: Listening”

redistricting

NYT:

For two hours on Saturday, Greg Goode, a Republican member of the Indiana Senate, sat on a tall wooden chair, listening as constituents told him they oppose a plan to redraw the state’s political map to send more Republicans to Congress.

No one spoke in favor of the idea. Mr. Goode said later that six of the roughly 200 people who showed up for the event, which he arranged, indicated support for the redistricting plan on a sign-up sheet.

As Republicans and Democrats across the country race to draw new maps outside the usual once-a-decade cycle, often with little intraparty debate or discussion with opponents, Saturday’s exchange stood out as a counterpoint. Here was a Republican lawmaker saying he was unsure how he would vote on a map sought by President Trump, and seeking feedback from a left-leaning crowd that spoke against drawing new maps and described broader fears about the country’s direction.

“A fascist government has decided that they’re going to tell all the way down to the smallest district who’s boss,” said Thomas Baer, 68, a Terre Haute resident who urged Mr. Goode to “say no to this blatant power grab.”

Several states have moved quickly to draw new maps, with only nominal resistance from members of the party in power. But passage of a new map advantageous to Republicans is not a certainty in Indiana, where the president and his allies have struggled for months to muster enough support. Legislators like Mr. Goode will decide what happens….

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“Trump escalates demands for 2020 election investigations and prosecution”

Department of Justice, election subversion risk, fraudulent fraud squad

WaPo:

President Donald Trump is dialing up pressure on the Justice Department to freshly scrutinize ballots from the 2020 election, raising tensions with administration officials who think their time is better spent examiningvoter lists for future elections.

In recent private meetings, public comments and social media posts, Trump has renewed demands that members of his administration find fraud in the five-year-old defeat that he never accepted. He recently hired at the White House a lawyer who worked on contesting the 2020 results. Administration officials and allies have asked to inspect voting equipment in Colorado and Missouri. Others are seeking mail ballots from Atlanta in 2020, when Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to lose Georgia since 1992.

Across the administration, though, officials have been more focused on forward-looking steps such as examiningstate voter rolls for people who have moved or aren’t citizens. Some officials are ready to move on from 2020 and want to avoid being called “election deniers,”a term for people who claimed without evidence that Trump beat Biden in the 2020 election.

But Trump and some allies inside and outside the administrationwill not let go of allegations of widespread election fraud in 2020even though courts have repeatedly rejected their theories. They argue that future elections can’t be secured without a full accounting of 2020.

“I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Oct. 26. “If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms.”..

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Federal District Court Issues a Permanent Injunction Barring the U.S. Election Assistance Commission from Altering the Federal Form to Register to Vote to Require Documentary Proof of Citizenship, as Trump Purported to Order

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You can find the careful and well reasoned district court opinion at this link. From the introduction: The first question presented in these consolidated cases is whether the President, acting unilaterally, may direct changes to federal election procedures. Because… Continue reading

“Dems ‘Need the Votes’ of ‘Illegal Citizens,’ Top Federal Election Official Claims in Unhinged Rant” (Republican EAC Commissioner Christy McCormick)

Election Assistance Commission, fraudulent fraud squad
Despicable: A top federal voting official is facing a call to step down after accusing Democrats of encouraging “open borders” and widespread voting by “illegal citizens,” because “they need the votes.” The outlandish conspiracy theory is common on the… Continue reading

ProPublica Profile of NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby Draws Veiled Threat from Justice’s Daughter to Drop the Story or Deal with Trump Administration

chicanery, judicial elections, redistricting
ProPublica: In early 2023, Paul Newby, the Republican chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court, gave the state and the nation a demonstration of the stunning and overlooked power of his office.  The previous year, the court — then… Continue reading