Justin Grimmer

Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor of Public Policy at Stanford University. His research focuses on American politics, elections, and machine-learning methods for studying politics.

Proposition 39 Offers a Voter Confidence Rationale for Stricter ID Checks

Hoover’s Justin Grimmer argues that Proposition 39 is more likely to affect confidence in California elections than to prevent significant voter fraud, which he says is already rare. The measure would replace signature checks on mail ballots with a match against the last four digits of a government ID and require ID at polling places; Grimmer says research finds voter ID laws have little effect on turnout but may increase trust. He also identifies an unresolved implementation question: how voters already registered would choose an ID for mail-ballot verification.

Hoover InstitutionOct 28, 20267 min read