On Aug. 15, 2023, DeMaio, who is running for the 75th Assembly District seat, announced he was going to put a California voter ID initiative on the November 2024 ballot. The initiative would have amended the California Constitution to restrict voting to people with a valid, current driver’s license or other government ID.
It needed 874,641 signatures by April 16, 2024 to qualify for the ballot. DeMaio didn’t submit a single signature, according to records provided by the California Secretary of State’s office.
This isn’t the first time DeMaio promoted a statewide voter ID initiative. The conservative activist and former San Diego City Council member has promoted but failed to deliver any signatures on five ballot measures, including the most recent one, since 2015.
From Sept. 15, 2021 when DeMaio filed the first voter ID initiative to Feb. 17, 2024, DeMaio’s Ballot Measure Committee raised more than $2 million, records show. The committee also raised $2.4 million in 2018.
A spokesperson for DeMaio said the most recent initiative, along with a similar one in 2021, was to lay the groundwork for a successful voter ID initiative in 2026.
“Carl DeMaio and Reform California are the only ones leading the fight to qualify and pass a constitutional amendment to require voter ID in elections in California and expect the initiative to qualify for the 2026 ballot as we continue to refine the legislative text, prepare for our signature collection operations, and engage voters,” DeMaio spokesperson Jen Jacobs wrote in an email.
Jason Roe, a political consultant who used to work for DeMaio, said he suspects DeMaio’s intent may not be to pass the ballot initiatives in the first place.
“This to me is clearly about data collection,” Roe said.
As part of his process, DeMaio first gathers signatures online – even though these can’t be used to qualify a measure for the ballot. DeMaio says this helps him understand how much support there is for an initiative.
But Roe said this gives DeMaio contact information for hundreds of thousands of people. And DeMaio knows these people care about the same issues as him. That’s extremely valuable information, Roe said.
Once he has their information, DeMaio can “retarget them for fundraising appeals,” Roe said.
Reform California is a political action committee that DeMaio chairs.
DeMaio released a video about the recent voter ID initiative on Feb. 26.
“I have a very rigorous methodology for how we do ballot measures, citizen initiatives, recalls – that’s why we have a stellar success rate,” DeMaio says in the video. “Our view is we don’t launch until we’re ready.”
By that metric, DeMaio has never entered the ready-to-launch phase on a statewide ballot measure.
His methodology includes gathering signatures through an online petition form, recruiting hundreds of thousands of volunteers and raising millions of dollars.
The signatures he collects online won’t count toward the 875,000 signatures he needs to submit to the Secretary of State’s office. The purpose is to get close to 1 million people to commit to signing the initiative first, DeMaio said in the video. Once there is enough support, his operation would reach out to those same people to officially sign the initiative.
It’s a similar strategy for his volunteers. DeMaio’s goal is to recruit 250,000 volunteers throughout California that can make firm commitments to the number of signatures they will collect when it comes time to sign the initiative. Volunteers are asked to commit to collecting 10 to 25 signatures on the low end to 250 or more signatures on the high end.
As of Feb. 26, DeMaio’s team had recruited 73,000 volunteers that will help “get the signatures at the lowest possible cost,” he said in the video.
Then, there’s the third piece: money. DeMaio said he’s hoping to raise $1 million before initiating the official signature collection with a final goal of $3 million for the entire campaign.
That $1 million would pay for mailers, signage and staff – including some paid canvassers – he said.
DeMaio’s video shows he raised $221,000 as of Feb. 26.
According to campaign contribution records from the Secretary of State’s office, DeMaio raised much more than that through his Ballot Measure Committee, which fundraised for his voter ID initiative and previous ballot initiatives.
He was also part of the statewide gas tax repeal that made the ballot in 2018, and an effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. Both were not approved by voters. Conservative activists across the state criticized his involvement in both movements.
DeMaio is a Republican running to represent the 75th Assembly District, which encompasses a vast portion of northern and eastern San Diego County. He and his opponent, Republican Andrew Hayes, were the top two vote-getters in the March Primary, though DeMaio came out on top. DeMaio previously served one term on the San Diego City Council in 2008, then lost races for mayor in 2012 and for Congress in 2014 and 2020.
I follow him with his grift emails always asking for money but never give him any. Paying for politics is abhorrent.
If DeMaio is legally allowed to pay his own salary out of the money he raises for theses ballot measures, we are witnessing an incredible scam. He would be following in the footsteps of his fuhrer, Donald Trump. Raising money for bogus purposes.
The liberal Voice of San Diego has a long history of running hit pieces on Carl DeMaio. In three minutes, I Googled several instances in which DeMaio successfully submitted signatures for ballot initiatives. It’s not his fault that the Sacramento swamp and their donors that fund the Voice of San Diego use misleading ballot title measures and swamp money to deceive voters into voting against their best interests. Do your research folks, you can’t trust the liberal media. Especially the Voice of San Diego.
Yes. The useless narcissist just wants to keep his name circulating on media.
Typical hit job from the far left VOSD. Long ago VOSD actually did investigative journalism, now it’s simply a leftist PAC.
Funny how Dems want everyone (including illegals ) to vote …until the vote is for a conservative idea — then it’s ” very important ” that you must pay people to stand outside von’s to collect signatures.