diff --git a/django/newforms/fields.py b/django/newforms/fields.py
index b9a210db8c..970a5185da 100644
--- a/django/newforms/fields.py
+++ b/django/newforms/fields.py
@@ -359,7 +359,7 @@ class ChoiceField(Field):
         value = smart_unicode(value)
         if value == u'':
             return value
-        valid_values = set([str(k) for k, v in self.choices])
+        valid_values = set([smart_unicode(k) for k, v in self.choices])
         if value not in valid_values:
             raise ValidationError(ugettext(u'Select a valid choice. That choice is not one of the available choices.'))
         return value
diff --git a/django/newforms/forms.py b/django/newforms/forms.py
index edd1992cf4..2230057c1d 100644
--- a/django/newforms/forms.py
+++ b/django/newforms/forms.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Form classes
 
 from django.utils.datastructures import SortedDict, MultiValueDict
 from django.utils.html import escape
-from django.utils.encoding import StrAndUnicode
+from django.utils.encoding import StrAndUnicode, smart_unicode
 from fields import Field
 from widgets import TextInput, Textarea, HiddenInput, MultipleHiddenInput
 from util import flatatt, ErrorDict, ErrorList, ValidationError
@@ -311,8 +311,8 @@ class BoundField(StrAndUnicode):
         associated Form has specified auto_id. Returns an empty string otherwise.
         """
         auto_id = self.form.auto_id
-        if auto_id and '%s' in str(auto_id):
-            return str(auto_id) % self.html_name
+        if auto_id and '%s' in smart_unicode(auto_id):
+            return smart_unicode(auto_id) % self.html_name
         elif auto_id:
             return self.html_name
         return ''
diff --git a/django/newforms/models.py b/django/newforms/models.py
index cee6ab1c74..c89cb9cadd 100644
--- a/django/newforms/models.py
+++ b/django/newforms/models.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ and database field objects.
 """
 
 from django.utils.translation import ugettext
+from django.utils.encoding import smart_unicode
 from util import ValidationError
 from forms import BaseForm, DeclarativeFieldsMetaclass, SortedDictFromList
 from fields import Field, ChoiceField
@@ -120,7 +121,7 @@ class QuerySetIterator(object):
         if self.empty_label is not None:
             yield (u"", self.empty_label)
         for obj in self.queryset:
-            yield (obj._get_pk_val(), str(obj))
+            yield (obj._get_pk_val(), smart_unicode(obj))
         # Clear the QuerySet cache if required.
         if not self.cache_choices:
             self.queryset._result_cache = None
diff --git a/tests/regressiontests/forms/regressions.py b/tests/regressiontests/forms/regressions.py
index c5a94db6f9..caa0f68741 100644
--- a/tests/regressiontests/forms/regressions.py
+++ b/tests/regressiontests/forms/regressions.py
@@ -36,4 +36,14 @@ Unicode decoding problems...
 >>> f = SomeForm()
 >>> f.as_p()
 u'<p><label for="id_somechoice_0">\xc5\xf8\xdf:</label> <ul>\n<li><label><input type="radio" id="id_somechoice_0" value="\xc5" name="somechoice" /> En tied\xe4</label></li>\n<li><label><input type="radio" id="id_somechoice_1" value="\xf8" name="somechoice" /> Mies</label></li>\n<li><label><input type="radio" id="id_somechoice_2" value="\xdf" name="somechoice" /> Nainen</label></li>\n</ul></p>'
+
+Testing choice validation with UTF-8 bytestrings as input (these are the
+Russian abbreviations "мес." and "шт.".
+
+>>> UNITS = (('\xd0\xbc\xd0\xb5\xd1\x81.', '\xd0\xbc\xd0\xb5\xd1\x81.'), ('\xd1\x88\xd1\x82.', '\xd1\x88\xd1\x82.'))
+>>> f = ChoiceField(choices=UNITS)
+>>> f.clean(u'\u0448\u0442.')
+u'\u0448\u0442.'
+>>> f.clean('\xd1\x88\xd1\x82.')
+u'\u0448\u0442.'
 """