Trump Demands California Adopt Voter ID Requirement to Get Wildfire Aid

President Donald Trump said during public remarks Friday that he would withhold aid for the Los Angeles wildfires unless California adopted a voter ID requirement.

“I want voter ID for the people of California, and they all want it,” Trump said. “Right now, you have no — you don’t have voter ID. People want to have voter identification.”

Presumably, Trump was referring to a voter ID requirement at the polls because California already requires people to provide approved forms of photo IDs, like driver’s licenses and passports, when they register to vote.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) press office swiftly issued a response to Trump’s statements Friday, fact-checking his misleading statements about the state’s election laws as well as stating that California is not alone in its ID policy.

“15 states do not generally require voter ID at polls, including Nevada and Pennsylvania (two states won by President Trump),” the press office said.

The office also stated, “Conditioning aid for American citizens is wrong.” Trump’s other condition for the assistance was that California’s “water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state.”

Also in his remarks, Trump said, “You want to have proof of citizenship.” In its statement, Newsom’s press office said that when Californians register to vote, people must attest to being both a California resident and U.S. citizen “under penalty of perjury.”

Many Republicans have pushed voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements over the past couple of years to tamp down on noncitizens voting, which they claimed is a massive threat to American elections.

However, noncitizen voting is already illegal under federal statute and exceedingly rare. Implementing these requirements won’t just stop noncitizens from voting, it could also prevent eligible voters from casting ballots simply because they don’t possess or have access to a valid photo ID or proof of citizenship documents — like a birth certificate.

According to a survey released in 2024, one in 10 voting-age citizens in the U.S. can’t easily access documents to prove their citizenship.

The survey also showed that over 20 million voting-age U.S. citizens don’t have a valid, non-expired driver’s license, and another 28 million have a non-expired license but it doesn’t include their current address and current name.

This disproportionately impacts people of color, with over a quarter of Black and Hispanic voting-age citizens not having a driver’s license with their current name and/or address compared to only 5% of white counterparts, according to the survey. 

Also, many married or divorced women who changed their last name may be affected by voter ID requirements at the polls if the name on their current ID doesn’t match the one they used when they registered to vote.

Most notably, the survey revealed that “Over half of Americans living in states requiring photo ID to vote in-person do not know their state’s laws, and do not realize that they will need this type of identification to successfully cast a ballot.”

Due to how harmful these requirements are, Newsom signed a bill into law last year prohibiting local governments from requiring voter ID.  

This law was the subject of litigation after Huntington Beach voters approved a local initiative last year requiring voters to show ID when voting in municipal elections, and Democratic state officials sued, stating that the policy conflicted with state election law. 

They said in their lawsuit that “California maintains a uniform and robust legal scheme for protecting the rights of eligible voters.” A state judge dismissed the case in November, but the officials appealed.

It’s unclear if Trump’s administration will ultimately withhold aid, but Newsom made it clear he doesn’t support voter ID being required at the polls.

Learn more about voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements here.

Read about how noncitizen voting became a GOP obsession in 2024 here.