By Karen Rubin, editor@news-photos-features.com, news-photos-features.com
Despite the fact that United States is predicated on the ability of people to elect their own representatives, the United States already has deplorably low turnout in voting – and likely is what sent Trump to White House not once but twice. Republicans are now pushing through the SAVE Act to put more obstacles in the way of voters reaching the ballot box and having their votes counted to insure one-party rule for the foreseeable future.
Republicans have realized since 2000 the benefits of suppressing votes, purging voters, playing with the count (including rejecting votes) – leading to reelection of George W. Bush in 2004. After Obama’s win in 2008, they went to work in earnest to suppress voting using such techniques as placing voting places off-campus and hard-to-reach places, making people (even 102-year olds) wait hours on line, having too few voting machines or paper ballots, purging voter rolls without giving voters recourse, making it hard to register to vote, and challenging ballots.
By 2020’s election, in the midst of the deadly coronavirus pandemic, they attacked mail-in-ballots, and did all they could to disrupt their delivery, count and certification, attempting to turnover the election in 60 separate lawsuits. And after that failed, Trump tried to extort election officials to change the count, threatened the Vice President to reject certification, and sent thousands to a deadly insurrection at the Capitol.
There’s no question that these tactics – with an assist from Russians who phoned in bomb threats to Democratic-leaning polling places - enabled Trump to slip through three swing states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to win the Electoral College.
After Biden’s historic win in 2020, they went to work again – making it illegal to give water or food to people waiting on line to vote, refining their tactics of purging voter lists, rejecting reforms, such as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, that would affirm every eligible American citizen the right to vote and to ease access to the ballot.
Can’t have that. Can’t have “those” people actually voting or having their vote counted.
And they are aided in their crusade to turn America into a White Christo Fascist Nationalist Oligarch autocracy by the Imperial Supremes on the Supreme Court, who eroded free and fair elections beginning in 2000 by selecting George W. Bush over Al Gore (who actually won Florida and should have won the Electoral College), then the 2010 Citizens United decision which effectively turned cash into speech and power and the ability to buy politicians, policy and elections and giving Elon Musk the ability to buy the government for a mere $250 million, then attacking the Voting Rights Act, giving the Jim Crow states the ability to gerrymander to retain control of Congress, and now, actually poised to render the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional altogether, giving free rein to cut out whole groups from elected the representatives of their choice.
So now the MAGA Republicans are ramming through Congress the SAVE Act (more properly the SAVE THEIR CORRUPT ASSES Act) – so if Democrats think they can just wait it out until 2026 midterms, they are delusional, because the plan is for MAGA to keep control by hook or by crook.
The Orwellian named Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would require everyone to provide proof of citizenship when registering or re-registering to vote by presenting a passport or birth certificate. As a result, millions of currently eligible voters would be disenfranchised and future generations disincentivized and blocked from voting.
According to Moveon.org, 21 million U.S. citizens of voting age do not have proof of citizenship readily available, only about half of American adults have a passport, and millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate, which under the SAVE Act, would jeopardize their ability to vote.
More specifically, the SAVE Act is targeted at disenfranchising women: tens of millions of people, primarily women, who changed their last name after getting married could be disenfranchised because their name no longer matches their birth certificate. This tactic has already been used to block women in places like Texas (groundzero for women’s enslavement) which require an ID to vote, where the name on the driver’s license does not match the birth certificate. Instead of accepting the marriage certificate, where a woman can adopt the new name, they require the woman to go through a court process to legally change their name.
It is particularly villainous considering that the TrumpMuskDOGE is closing offices, firing staff so it will be very difficult to obtain documents. They have put in requirements so that a transgender person will no longer be able to even obtain a passport since their sex would not conform with their birth certificate.
“Do you know where your birth certificate is?,” Moveon writes. “If you're married and changed your last name, does your birth certificate or passport match your new name? Have you ever experienced a natural disaster and had your documents destroyed? Have you recently moved and changed your address? Like millions of other Americans, are you so strapped between work, child care, and other obligations that taking the time to find or obtain new documents just isn't in the cards at a moment's notice when it's time to vote? These are just some of the conditions that could block millions of people from voting under this legislation.”
One of the reasons voter turnout by young people is so low is because of the difficulty of registering and reregistering when these people relocate – after graduating college, getting a new job, getting a new home, then another new job. The rules for registering also vary so much – and whether people can vote at the last place they have registered. (It is likely also why the numbers of voters doesn’t match the registration because when people re-register, they are not necessarily removed from the previous voting roll, which Trumpers have used to argue “voter fraud.”)
From Moveon.org:
The impact of this legislation would be felt broadly. For many, it would be a great nuisance, but for others, it could mean barriers that are too high to overcome or a flat-out loss of the ability to vote. The SAVE Act would impose major hurdles to voting for low-income voters and the millions upon millions of people who have ever changed their last name through marriage, as well as young people, rural communities, people living on tribal lands, unhoused people, and, disproportionately, people of color.
And forget registering or re-registering to vote by mail or online. The SAVE Act would functionally eliminate these options, as you would need to ultimately show up in person to prove your citizenship. The same goes for in-person voter registration drives that are common on college campuses, at community centers, and at events to engage people who often face high barriers to voting.4 This step alone could prevent millions of people from voting, which is the bill's exact intention.
And for what? The existence of widespread voter fraud has been repeatedly debunked.5,6 While Republicans in Congress say this is about election integrity, we know the truth. It's about attempting to take us back to a time when just a wealthy, white few had a say and, collectively, we had fewer freedoms.
Republicans in Congress are blatantly attempting to strip away our freedom to vote to further push their billionaire-backed agenda. They know their agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest, gutting public education, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and more is so unpopular that in order to advance it, they must take away our right to have a say. We need to be loud in our opposition to ensure that every Democrat rejects this bill and Republicans know there will be consequences for their support.
Every eligible person in our country should not only be allowed to vote, they should be encouraged and supported in doing so. It's shameful that this current administration is actively discouraging people from exercising this fundamental and foundational right.
Tell Congress to reject the SAVE Act, a voter suppression bill that would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters and create unnecessary hurdles to prevent future generations from registering to vote!
But even these obstacles should be minor inconveniences to those who remember the Freedom Riders and those who had to endure Jim Crow, lynchings, in order to exercise their right to vote.
Do not dare blame Biden or Democrats for the atrocities being wielded by Trump, Musk, DOGE and the MAGA Republicans if you did not vote because you were going to show Biden just how upset you were over this or that.
Trump was able to steal back the ultimate levers of power because 10 million Biden voters did not show up – whether because of voter suppression, apathy, or a show of outrage.
That cannot stand.
Act to reject the SAVE Act. Register to vote or re-register to vote. And vote – not just in big presidential elections, but local and state elections. Imagine for one moment how life in New York State would be different had Republican Lee Zeldin, now undoing environmental protection and climate actions as the administrator of the now-ironically named Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), had beat Democrat Kathy Hochul for Governor. Think about how different women’s rights, health care, public education, civil rights, climate action and environmental protection would be.
Elections have consequences we are told by Republicans when they win (are irrelevant when they lose).
But elections do have consequences.
Vote.
In 2024, out of a voting eligible population of 244,666,890, 155,201,157, 63.4% turned out, compared to 158,481,688, 65.3% of the 242,690,810 voting eligible population, in 2020, according to The American Presidency Project (https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections).
In 2016, Trump also benefited from low turnout, a 136,787,187, 59.2%, out of 230,931,921 eligible voters.
Turnout of voting age population has been as high as 81.8% in 1876 and 80.2% in 1840, and as low as 49.2% in 1920. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/voter-turnout-in-presidential-elections
It is exactly as Kamala Harris said: When we turn out. We win.
But too many – actually 10 million Biden voters - did not turn out.
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