HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — California officials on Monday sued Huntington Beach over a new law that lets the city require voters to provide identification to cast ballots at the polls starting in 2026.
The state's Attorney General Rob Bonta said the measure approved by voters in the Southern California city of nearly 200,000 people stands in conflict with state law and could make it harder for poor, non-white, young, elderly and disabled voters to cast ballots.
State officials previously warned that the measure to amend the city's charter would suppress voter participation and are asking a court to block it from taking effect, he said.
“The right to freely cast your vote is the foundation of our democracy and Huntington Beach’s voter ID policy flies in the face of this principle,” Bonta said in a statement while announcing the lawsuit.
Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates said the city has the authority to take election-related measures under the state's constitution and will defend the decision of local voters.
“The people of Huntington Beach have made their voices clear on this issue,” Gates said in an email.
The measure was passed by voters earlier this year in Huntington Beach, a city in Orange County dubbed “Surf City USA” that is known for its scenic shoreline dotted with surfers catching waves.
Huntington Beach's city council placed the voter ID measure on the March ballot after taking a series of hotly contested decisions on topics ranging from flag flying to the removal of books from the public library’s children’s section over concerns about the appropriateness of materials. The moves were initiated by a politically conservative council majority, which took office in 2022, and have drawn scores of residents on all sides of issues to city meetings.
The measure — which would let the city require voter identification, increase in-person voting sites and monitor ballot drop boxes in local elections — won at the polls in March with 53%, county election data shows.
Bonta, a Democrat, said it was not immediately clear how the measure would be implemented. In California, voters can cast ballots in person and also by returning ballots to drop boxes or by mail.
A message seeking comment was left with the Orange County Registrar of Voters, which oversees elections in the county's 34 cities, including Huntington Beach.
Huntington Beach has a history of sparring with state officials over the measures it can take under its city charter on topics ranging from immigratio n to housing.
While Democrats outnumber Republicans in Orange County, the GOP is dominant in Huntington Beach with nearly 54,000 registered voters versus 41,000 Democrats, county data shows.
FILE - People wait in line outside a voting center to cast their recall ballots in Huntington Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021. California officials on Monday, April 15, 2024, sued Huntington Beach over a new law that lets the city require voters to provide identification to cast ballots at the polls starting in 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Special Assistant Attorney General at the California Department of Justice (DOJ) Damon Brown joins a news conference announcing a lawsuit to protect voter rights at a news conference at the California Department of Justice in Los Angeles, Monday, April. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announces a lawsuit to protect voter rights at a news conference at the California Department of Justice in Los Angeles Monday, April 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, left, Secretary of State Shirley Weber takes questions after announcing a lawsuit to protect voter rights at a news conference at the California Department of Justice in Los Angeles Monday, April. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
JERUSALEM (AP) — A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation, which the Pentagon said Monday will cost at least $320 million.
Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters the cost is a rough estimate for the project and includes the transportation of the equipment and pier sections from the U.S. to the Gaza coast, as well as the construction and aid delivery operations.
Satellite photos analyzed Monday by The Associated Press show the USNS Roy P. Benavidez about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the port on shore, where the base of operations for the project is being built by the Israeli military. The USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr., an Army logistics vessel, and several other Army boats are with the Benavidez and working on the construction of what the military calls the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system.
A satellite image from Sunday by Planet Labs PBC showed pieces of the floating pier in the Mediterranean Sea alongside the Benavidez. Measurements of the vessel match known features of the Benavidez, a Bob Hope-class vehicle cargo ship operated by the Military Sealift Command.
A U.S. military official confirmed late last week that the Benavidez had begun construction and that it was far enough off shore to ensure troops building the platform would be safe. Singh said Monday that next will come the construction of the causeway, which will then be anchored to the beach.
U.S. and Israeli officials have said they hope to have the floating pier in place, the causeway attached to the shore and operations underway by early May. The cost of the operation was first reported by Reuters.
Under the plan by the U.S. military, aid will be loaded onto commercial ships in Cyprus to sail to the floating platform now under construction off Gaza. The pallets will be loaded onto trucks, which will be loaded onto smaller ships that will travel to a metal, floating two-lane causeway. The 550-meter (1,800-foot) causeway will be attached to the shore by the Israeli Defense Forces.
The U.S. military official said an American Army engineering unit has teamed with an IDF engineering unit in recent weeks to practice the installation of the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just up the coast.
The new port sits just southwest of Gaza City, a bit north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli military built during the current fighting against Hamas. The area was the territory’s most populous before the Israeli ground offensive rolled through and pushed more than 1 million people south toward the city of Rafah on the Egyptian border.
Now Israeli military positions sit on either side of the port, which initially had been built, as part of an effort led by World Central Kitchen, out of the rubble of buildings leveled by Israel. That effort halted after an Israeli airstrike killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 as they traveled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel. The organization says it is resuming its work in Gaza.
Aid has been slow to get into Gaza, with long backups of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections. The U.S. and other nations also have used air drops to send food into Gaza. The U.S. military official said deliveries on the sea route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks daily.
Aid organizations have said several hundred such trucks are needed to enter Gaza every day.
In the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage, Israel cut off or heavily restricted food, water, medicine, electricity and other aid from entering the Gaza Strip. Under pressure from the U.S. and others, Israel says the situation is improving, though United Nations agencies have said much more aid needs to enter.
Gaza, slightly more than twice the size of the city of Washington and home to 2.3 million people, has found itself on the precipice of famine. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the fighting began, local health authorities say.
On Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the amount of aid going into Gaza would continue to scale up.
“This temporary pier will provide a ship-to-shore distribution system that will further increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” he said in a statement.
But high-ranking Hamas political official Khalil al-Hayya told the AP that the group would consider Israeli forces — or forces from any other country — stationed by the pier to guard it as “an occupying force and aggression,” and that the militant group would resist it.
On Wednesday, a mortar attack targeted the port site, though no one was hurt.
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the USNS Roy P. Benavidez in the Mediterranean Sea off shore from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, April 28, 2024. A U.S. Navy ship involved in the American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip is off shore from the enclave, slowly building out a floating platform for the operation, satellite photos analyzed Monday, April 29, 2024, by The Associated Press show. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows the USNS Roy P. Benavidez in the Mediterranean Sea off shore from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, April 27, 2024. A U.S. Navy ship involved in the American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip is off shore from the enclave, slowly building out a floating platform for the operation, satellite photos analyzed Monday, April 29, 2024, by The Associated Press show. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
