House Republicans plan to vote next week on a voter suppression bill that would require people to prove their citizenship in order to register to vote—a move expected to disenfranchise tens of millions of American citizens.
The bill, ridiculously dubbed the SAVE America Act, would require people to show either a passport or original birth certificate when registering to vote. It would implement nationwide voter ID rules, requiring people to show photographic ID to cast a ballot.
It's a "solution" to fix the imaginary problem of noncitizen voting, which Republicans falsely claim happens when they wish to explain away their legitimate losses.
Only about half of Americans have a passport, and more than 9% of voting-age Americans—which amounts to 21.3 million people—don't have access to documents to prove their citizenship, such as their original birth certificate. Therefore, the bill could unjustly deny tens of millions of people the right to vote.
Democrats have correctly dubbed it modern-day Jim Crow. It amounts to a poll tax, with people being forced to track down birth certificates or pay for a passport—which costs at least $130. For people who do not have their birth certificates in their possession, many would have to pay a $150 file-search fee to find it.
An election worker puts out voting signs near the Wisconsin Capitol.
Ironically, requiring a passport to register to vote may hurt Republicans more than Democrats.
A study published by NBC News in 2019 found that liberals were much more likely to hold valid passports than conservatives. According to the study, 57% of people who identified as liberal said they held a valid passport, while 48% who identified as conservative said they had one.
But President Donald Trump—a sore loser who can’t get over his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden and who is now weaponizing the federal government to prove his lies—says the bill must pass to save our elections.
"America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World. We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer," Trump wrote Thursday in a Truth Social post, urging Congress to pass the SAVE America Act.
Senate Democrats have vowed to block the bill.
“The SAVE Act is an abomination,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday. “It’s Jim Crow 2.0 across the country. We are going to do everything we can to stop it.”
Because Democrats vowed to block the legislation, Trump and some of his most fervent supporters are urging Senate Majority Leader John Thune to kill the filibuster. But Thune was cool to that idea, saying that doing so would eat up valuable time the Senate needs to pass other bills.
Ultimately, the Brennan Center for Justice has been warning about the perils of legislation like the SAVE America Act since Republicans began crowing about passing it.
"The SAVE Act solves nothing," the Brennan Center wrote on Monday "All available evidence, including from the Trump administration itself, indicates that only American citizens vote and the exceptions are vanishingly rare. States that have combed through their voter rolls looking for illegally cast votes—like Louisiana and Utah did recently—have repeatedly confirmed that fact.
The piece adds, "These bills are part of a broader federal agenda to sow distrust in our elections, undermine election administration, and discourage Americans from making their voices heard. The SAVE Act, in any form, would block millions of American citizens from voting. Congress should stand firm once again and reject the SAVE Act."
But never underestimate Republicans. They will always do the dumbest possible thing in subservience to Trump.
