NORTH COUNTY —— A bill introduced by a North County Republican who wants voters to provide proof of citizenship and identification before voting will be debated in a state Assembly committee today.

The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Mark Wyland, R-Del Mar, would prohibit a person from registering to vote unless he or she could provide proof of citizenship. It also would require every voter to present identification —— a driver's license or other government-issued I.D. or at least two pieces of identification containing the voter's name and address —— before casting a ballot.

Wyland, a staunch conservative who has introduced a number of measures that would tighten the state's immigration policies and backed a now-defunct initiative to bar illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses, said the bill would prevent voter fraud and ensure that voting rights are extended only to U.S. citizens.

"We need to make sure only citizens are registered to vote," Wyland said in a phone conversation from his office in Sacramento on Monday. Similar bills in the past have died before getting to the Assembly floor.

Critics have said that there is little evidence that noncitizens are trying to vote, and that requiring voters to produce identification before casting their ballots will cause fewer people to vote.

"When you force people to add steps to exercise their rights in a democracy, you lose voters," said Christian Ramirez of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego, a group that promotes immigrants' rights. "Of course, we need to make sure that only citizens participate in the electoral process because that is the law, but we need to ensure that voting is an easy process or the freedom and legitimacy of any election will be eroded."

Current law requires people who register to vote to sign an affidavit stating that they are citizens, but does not require them to provide proof of citizenship beyond signing the form. Once registered, voters need not present identification before voting at the polls.

Wyland's proposal would require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship in addition to the affidavit. It also would require voters to show identification each time they vote.

"I don't think this targets anyone," Wyland said. "It says you have to demonstrate you're a citizen to register to vote … and that we make sure every one person gets one vote. … Those are the two most basic elements of a democracy."

History has not been kind to voter identification measures in the Democrat-dominated state Assembly. Wyland co-authored a bill last year that would have required voters to show photo identification at the polls, but that bill died before it could get to the Assembly floor for a vote.

Even supporters of Wyland's bill said they expect that his latest proposal will die a similar death.

If the bill fails, some locals in heavily conservative areas, including North County, have pledged to take a similar plan to the voters.

Local Republican Jim Gibson, a Vista school board trustee, is leading the drive for an initiative that will go before voters in November if organizers collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot. The initiative seeks to require voters to show photo identification at the polls, but would not force voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

"Each time something like this is brought up in the Legislature, it's been voted down," Gibson said Monday. "If it gets voted down again, we'll push hard to get it passed."

Wyland said the bill is a reaction to an attempt in San Francisco to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Critics said Wyland's proposal is one of several anti-Latino measures couched in language about protecting the rights of citizens.

"Even though we might say this bill is aimed at all voters, its intent is to single out Latino immigrants," said Arcela Nunez-Alvarez with the National Latino Research Center at Cal State San Marcos. "Several initiatives we are seeing right now are representative of a fear of Latino immigrants and the idea that they might have some power."

Contact staff writer Erin Schultz at (760) 739-6644 or eschultz@nctimes.com.