Huntington Beach Defies Gov Newsom in Battle Over Voter ID, Gets HUGE Win

Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom outlawing ID at the polling stations, there’s a movement growing to fight back.

There was a legal battling happening under his nose and Huntington Beach scored a huge win over California!

What was it?

The judge ruled in favor of the city’s voter ID measure for local elections.

City Attorney Michael Gates declared it a major blow to the state’s authority.

One of Newsom’s henchmen, California AG Rob Bonta, hinted the fight isn’t over.

For now, Huntington Beach stands defiant as a Republican outlier in a ‘blue ‘state.

The wins keep rolling in.

This is huge. It will lead counties in blue states throughout the country to institute. their own voter ID requirements, even if the state does not require voter ID. A precedent is being set by Huntington Beach California. https://t.co/OYCFB63gCU

— Meet Kevin😇 (@realMeetKevin) November 16, 2024

AP News reports:

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A judge on Friday rejected California’s lawsuit against the city of Huntington Beach over a local measure allowing officials to require voter identification at the polls.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Nico Dourbetas ruled that existing state law does not block the local measure, which was approved by voters earlier this year. The ruling could clear the way for the majority-Republican city to implement one of California’s only voter ID requirements at the polls in local elections.

“It’s a massive black eye to the state of California,” City Attorney Michael Gates said of the ruling. “And what the state of California needs to know, if they haven’t found out already, is Huntington Beach is not going to be intimidated or deterred.”

State Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said in a statement to The Associated Press that the Friday decision “does not address the merits of the case.”

“We continue to believe that Huntington Beach’s voter ID policy clearly conflicts with state law, and will respond appropriately in court,” the office added.

Residents in the seaside city of Huntington Beach voted in March for a ballot measure that lets local officials require voter identification at the polls starting in 2026. It also allows the city to increase in-person voting sites and monitor ballot drop boxes in local elections.

Republicans in California aren’t just going to sit and take it.

They’re fighting back!

BFD Alert: California recently banned Voter ID. Charter city Huntington Beach enacted a voter ID requirement via charter amendment in March.
California sued to invalidate HB's voter ID requirement. The court sustained HB's demurrer with leave to amend, meaning the case is over… pic.twitter.com/wxfYTBKPlR

— Julie Hamill (@hamill_law) November 15, 2024

🚨🚨 BREAKING: A judge in California just issued a ruling completely dismissing the case brought by the Gavin Newsom regime against the city of Huntington Beach for requiring voter ID pic.twitter.com/612RL8iafu

— JOSH DUNLAP (@JDunlap1974) November 16, 2024

If you learn better by watching a video, I’ve got you covered right here:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Oh boy, a flip is happening in California. California just got slapped in the face by Republicans, and it has everything to do with voter ID. But I want you to think about what the implications of this are going to be. We’ll talk about those, and I’ll give you my opinions as well.

Listen to this: a judge just rejected a lawsuit by California against Huntington Beach. This is a right-leaning beach town in California. Huntington Beach passed a measure that would require voter ID. In fact, they didn’t just use politicians to pass that—they put the measure to the people. It’s called Measure One in Huntington Beach, California. It was on the ballot, and it simply asked, “Should voters be asked to present an ID before they go to vote?” And 53.4% of them—a little under 33,000 people—voted for the measure.

In other words, a simple majority of people in Huntington Beach said, “Yeah, we want voter ID.” The mayor came out and said, “Our democracy does not work if people don’t have faith in the election results. Anytime you can add additional safeguards, it is important to do so, so people have faith in our election outcomes.”

I actually think that’s a wonderful argument. If people don’t believe the election system is fair and free, then you might have less turnout, more voter apathy, and, quite frankly, less participation in what really matters—and that’s voting, fulfilling our civic duties.

I get it, people are like, “Why vote in California anyway? You know it’s just going to lean left.” Well, not in Huntington Beach. And, B: the more you vote where you live, the more money funnels into your district because politicians look at a map and go, “Where are my voters? All right, I’m going to put the new park where the voters are.” So think about that when you vote. It’s not just about deciding the election; it’s also about getting more money to your district. Why do your roads suck? Well, how many people vote in your area compared to the other area? Think about that for a moment.

Now, some counterarguments that people may—oh, wait, first of all, let me just make this clear: there was a lawsuit by Gavin Newsom and the state of California against Huntington Beach. Gavin actually just signed a bill into law called SB1174 right before the election—like, literally five weeks before the election. Gavin Newsom and all his Democrat cronies at the top of California’s government—a supermajority of Democrats—passed Senate Bill 1174, and this prohibits local governments from passing any voter ID laws.

But the judge that ruled on this lawsuit—State of California versus Huntington Beach—said this is a California unconstitutional move, and Huntington Beach can go ahead with its voter ID law.

Now that’s a huge slap in the face to California because it means you now have an entire state that doesn’t require voter ID—with the exception of Huntington Beach. And it’s going to spawn other areas to say, “Oh, well, we want voter ID as well.”

It’s worth considering where voter ID in the country is legal or required. Thirty percent of states in the country do not require voter ID—sorry, it’s the other way around. Seventy percent require voter ID. In other words, a supermajority of our states require voter ID.

Now, this chart—or this graphic—is a little flawed. Newsmax put this together, and there are issues with it. I’m going to mention those. Nevada does require voter ID, but they didn’t tag that just to be a little dramatic with the picture here, and I think that’s a little misleading. I don’t know that it would make much of a difference, but voter ID is not required in Nevada.

Voter ID is required in New Hampshire, which they labeled as “no voter ID,” implying that Harris only won because there was no voter ID there—even though voter ID was required in Nevada and Trump won. Right? And then Pennsylvania requires voter ID when you vote in person, but not when you go to drop off your ballot at a ballot box. So it depends how you vote in Pennsylvania.

However, I think the overall theme of this chart is still reasonable. It still seems to argue that the more liberal areas don’t have voter ID. Now, there may be causation without correlation here because it’s like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did no voter ID laws come first, and then Democrats win? Or did Democrats win, and then no voter ID laws come?

It’d be interesting—let me see here—when did no voter ID pass in California? I’d be curious about that. No voter ID… oh, well, yeah. Now you get everything about what’s going on in this latest passing of the law. When did voter ID originally pass in California? And then I want to tell you why people go for no voter ID, and I want to give you my opinion. Oh, they just never had a statewide voter ID law requiring identification. So you basically just sort of grow up without a voter ID law. Interesting.

California did, obviously, slip and start leaning a lot more left. I mean, think when Governor Schwarzenegger—“I’ll be back,” I wish he would—but anyway, when he ran and won as a Republican governor, he actually had to deal with a Democratic simple majority in the Assembly and the Senate in California. He was still able to get things done. Now, though, you have a supermajority of Dems in the legislature in California.

So, why do people go for voter ID? Well, it’s obviously because they haven’t signed up for the Meet Kevin Alpha Report. See, if you signed up for the MeetKevin.com Alpha Report, you’d get Alpha every single day. You’d have known that I was looking for Tesla to go back to 318.62 on Friday. You could have opened some calls first thing in the morning there. That line was in play almost all day long, and it pretty much was. I give you those sorts of ideas 15 minutes before the market opens. Totally free. Go to MeetKevin.com/Alpha—just want to provide more value to you. Love y’all.

Okay, so why no voter ID? Well, people argue that poor people won’t vote if you have voter ID. People argue that people of color won’t vote. Older people won’t vote. And, frankly, the rules are good enough that they’ll match your signature and make sure there’s no duplicate vote, and that’s good enough. Those are the arguments that are made.

Now, I made a counterargument to this when I ran for governor. I actually posted this on X. Follow me there if you want—RealMeetKevin. By the way, if you want to see me and the kids on Instagram, just go to MeetKevin. You can follow me there. I try posting almost every single day, but every few days, I try to post stories there.

When I ran for governor, I made a voter ID policy that was very simple. Everyone told me, “You can’t have voter ID because poor people won’t vote.” Then my response: make IDs free for those below the poverty line. Increase DMV access in poor areas. But always require voter ID.

See, California has this impression that the way to solve things is to solve the ultimate problem in their opinion, and not what’s actually causing it. I want to go all the way back to the root causes of what’s causing the original problem. California’s view is, “Oh, poor people can’t afford an ID. Okay, well, let’s not require them to have an ID to vote.”

I’m like, “Okay, no. First of all, let’s just go first principles here: give them a free ID. Okay, but then after they have a free ID, how about we try to solve why they’re broke? How about we fix the schools that made them broke and go back to the original problem?”

It’s kind of like when I suggested legalizing gambling in California so you could actually raise tax revenues in California. People were like, “Oh my gosh, that’s going to cause a mental health crisis.” I’m like, “Then solve the mental health crisis, but don’t tell people what they can or can’t do. I don’t get it.”

Anyway, Secretary of State Shirley Weber—boy, she did not like me when I ran for governor—says, “The rules are good enough, and we don’t need voter ID.”

Council Member Natalie Moser says, “Voter ID sows chaos into our elections. I would trust elections less with voter ID.”That just sounds like literally the stupidest thing that I think I’ve ever heard. What? How? How would you trust the elections less with voter ID?

Okay, and then the ACLU—the American Civil Liberties Union—says, “Voter ID is voter suppression.” I don’t know. I don’t get it, but I support what Huntington Beach is doing.

And I want to talk about the implications of this. Frankly, the implications of this are vast. I mean, you’re going to start having Republican cities and towns inside of left-leaning states that are going to start passing voter ID laws. I think this is going to spread like COVID throughout the entire country. You’re going to see a whole lot more voter ID.

And I actually think that’s good.

But that’s my take. Anyway, thank you so much for watching. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Thanks, folks. Bye.