COURT OF APPEAL STRIKES DOWN HUNTINGTON BEACH VOTER ID CHARTER AMENDMENT
HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA – 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.
Plaintiff/Appellant Mark Bixby issued the following statement:
“I am gratified at the Court of Appeal’s decision. Voter ID disenfranchises voters and has shown no benefit to election integrity. But this is an example of a huge waste of taxpayer money. The City spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to put this on a special election ballot just to boost Tony Strickland’s State Senate campaign and Michael Gates’s efforts for an appointment in a Trump Administration, and has spent unknown hundreds of thousands in defending this pointless law. This is a pattern of the City spending on frivolous litigation, including on housing and the library, and MAGA antics like trying to ban books at the library. It’s time for the Huntington Beach City Council to stop with its MAGA politics of division and do some good for the people of Huntington Beach.”
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.
https://theliberaloc.com/2025/11/04/court-of-appeal-strikes-down-huntington-beach-voter-id-charter-amendment/