SAVE Act hurts voters
Please pay attention to the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility), which recently passed the US House and awaits passage by the Senate. Failing Senate approval, President Trump has stated he will issue an executive order.
The SAVE Act asserts it will prevent legions of illegal immigrants from registering to vote by requiring proof of US citizenship. Multiple investigations show that non-citizen registration is “vanishingly rare.” SAVE’s true intent is to suppress the votes of American citizens.
To register to vote, SAVE requires a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers as well as photo ID. Fifty percent of Americans lack passports or easy access to birth certificates. Groups most at risk to lose their vote through lack of documentation are: 18-24 year olds; rural voters; citizens of color; married women with name changes or those who have moved and need to re-register. Mail-in voters must show proof of citizenship in person and apply for ballots rather than receive them automatically by mail.
SAVE threatens election officials who register a voter without proper proof, even mistakenly,with as much as five years in prison!
This approach has already been tried in Kansas. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, “Before the law took effect, noncitizen registration in Kansas was exceedingly rare, accounting for 0.002% of applicants.” In practice, the legislation “prevented roughly 31,000 eligible citizens or 12% of applicants, from registering to vote.” After three years, it was struck down as unconstitutional by the Kansas Supreme Court.
Equally concerning, SAVE requires states to turn their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security. Per the League of Women Voters, “States that have done so have seen unprecedented interference including removal of specific voters and sharing of personal data.” President Trump recently said, “Republicans have to win this one (the SAVE Act). We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race.”
If SAVE becomes law, trust in our voting system would be unimaginably difficult to rebuild. Let your US Senators know that you expect them to vote against the SAVE Act and block an executive order.