California Voter ID Has a Solid and Interesting History

Several decades ago, when I became registered as a California voter, balloting was at a neighborhood polling place and everyone had to show government issued identification (Voter ID), even when the polling workers personally knew you. That process continued for years. Absentee ballots, voting by mail, was only utilized for exceptional circumstances. My neighborhood voting precinct had racial backgrounds of Caucasian, Chinese, Japanese, and black. Showing identification to vote was absolutely non-controversial. 

Many years later, President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, declared, without any proof or evidence, that Voter ID had suddenly become a method to exclude racial minorities. It never did in my neighborhood. The concept that racial minorities were too stupid to get a driver’s license or other government issued identification had become the default controlling narrative of the radical wing of the political left, though logically absurd and completely insulting to minorities they were claiming to protect. 

One needs to show ID to enter many government buildings, fly on a commercial airline, open bank accounts, and numerous other commonly engaged in civic activities. 

The United States Constitution protects the right of citizens to purchase firearms, but that requires ID.

The right to vote is not part of the United States Constitution. Therefore, firearms have a far higher legal standing than voting. If ID is required to acquire a gun, then the concept of Voter ID should not  be logically or legally be questioned.  

California Voter ID in History

An Example: Voter ID was so tight in the late 1800s Sacramento, it was virtually impossible to cheat. I looked up a great-grandfather, born in Germany, in the 1892 voter roll. 

At that time voters had to comply with the following identifying information: Age, height, complexion, color of eyes, color of hair, visible marks including scars and tattoos, country or state of nativity, date and place where became a naturalized citizen, place of residence, and Post Office address if different. That information was recorded along with the date of voter registration, and voting precinct. 

My great-grandfather was five feet five-and one-half inches in height, was forty-five years old, with gray eyes, of dark complexion, with dark hair, and was naturalized September 29, 1868 in San Francisco.  

Voter ID was absolute. If one tried to vote and the roll said he was born in Italy, yet had a Kentucky accent, he likely was not allowed to vote. 

Further, I have found proof that immigrants from China were voting in the California of the late 1800s. 

That destroys the contention that Voter ID is designed to exclude ethnic minority voting. 

Voter Turnout

The general tenor of the political climate might be judged by the four polling places of the Sacramento Republican primary of March 1869. The First Ward voted at Siddon’s Occidental Saloon, the Second Ward voted at the Harris Saloon, with the Third Ward at Hohn’s Saloon, and the Fourth at Cody’s Saloon, those being the popular institutes of the day. 

Those concerned by low voter turnout, they might take a clue from Sacramento’s electoral past. 

A final note on California elections comes from the March 27, 1869 San Francisco News Letter, then a popular society weekly. “The New York Post says the Atlantic states have been in the habit of exiling their scum to California. Let them continue; no harm can come of it. It enables them to get rid of an element of which they have superfluity, and furnishes us with the only available material from which to fashion a State Legislature …”