"On January 3rd, a bill called the SAVE Act was introduced in house. But what does this act promote and what kind of loopholes are there?" --Ruby Deetz, 8th Grade
On January 3rd, a bill called the SAVE Act was introduced in house. But what does this act promote and what kind of loopholes are there?
What is the SAVE Act?
When registering to vote, voters must present documentation of their citizenship. Usually all you need is your driver's license or ID but the SAVE act, introduced by Representative Chip Roy (R-TX), would require you to bring more official documents like your birth certificate, a valid passport, naturalization papers, military ID and service record, or an Enhanced Driver's Licence (EDL), which is only available in 5 states.
“Republicans think it would reduce voter fraud. Voter fraud is not very common and when it is done [it] is not usually done by people who aren't citizens, so I do not think it is really needed,” says Jack Blangey, OSA’s Government and Economics teacher. While voter fraud is a real issue, there's a very low percentage of it actually happening, between 0.0003% and 0.0025%.
Who Would This Affect?
If made into law, the SAVE Act would affect everyone, blue and red. According to a Brennan Center study, roughly 64% of respondents lack easy access to their citizenship documents but are still registered to vote, and most of them (60%) reported that they are “sure” they voted in the 2020 election. (For these numbers, people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the 2020 election were excluded.) To put this in perspective, just under 160 million people voted in the 2020 election. In other words, there are roughly 12 million American citizens who cast a ballot in 2020 but who would be functionally unable to register to vote if the SAVE Act were passed due to not having easy access to these documents.
However, even if you have these documents, married women are still at risk of having their vote taken away from them. Eighty-four percent of women who marry change their surname, meaning as many as 69 million American women do not have a birth certificate with their legal name on it and therefore could not use their birth certificate to prove citizenship. The SAVE Act makes no mention of being able to show a marriage certificate or change-of-name documentation.
The SAVE Act specifies that people who register by mail must present their documentation in person. While the bill does not specifically address online registration or voter registration drives, those methods are usually treated like mail registration, so the bill would probably require that applicants show up in person at a government office before the voter registration deadline. That means the SAVE Act would functionally eliminate those three very popular methods of registration. This would be detrimental considering more than 37 million people either registered for the first time or updated their registration using one of these methods in the two years before the 2020 election. Another 17 million did so in the two years ending with the 2022 midterms.
Many who support the SAVE Act say that it is targeting specific groups like immigrants, who Trump has accused of voting illegally in the past two presidential elections. “The bill is clearly aimed at undocumented immigrants, but as non-citizens already cannot vote it doesn't really change things. I think it is addressing a fear that is not supported by the reality of voter fraud,” says Blangey. Many agree with Blangey, saying it doesn't make sense to make a law for something where there's already a law to prevent it.
While the thought of this bill passing and becoming a law is scary, Blangey says the chances of that happening are not as high as they might seem, “I do not think it is likely to pass. In the Senate you need 60 votes to advance legislation unless it is a bill about taxing and spending. Laws about voting need 60 votes and Republicans only have 53 votes in the Senate.”
We already have strict laws in place to protect the security of our elections. The right to vote is a basic American freedom. Our elected officials should be working to make sure that right is protected, not restrict it further and unnecessarily.
What is the SAVE Act?
When registering to vote, voters must present documentation of their citizenship. Usually all you need is your driver's license or ID but the SAVE act, introduced by Representative Chip Roy (R-TX), would require you to bring more official documents like your birth certificate, a valid passport, naturalization papers, military ID and service record, or an Enhanced Driver's Licence (EDL), which is only available in 5 states.
“Republicans think it would reduce voter fraud. Voter fraud is not very common and when it is done [it] is not usually done by people who aren't citizens, so I do not think it is really needed,” says Jack Blangey, OSA’s Government and Economics teacher. While voter fraud is a real issue, there's a very low percentage of it actually happening, between 0.0003% and 0.0025%.
Who Would This Affect?
If made into law, the SAVE Act would affect everyone, blue and red. According to a Brennan Center study, roughly 64% of respondents lack easy access to their citizenship documents but are still registered to vote, and most of them (60%) reported that they are “sure” they voted in the 2020 election. (For these numbers, people who were under the age of 18 at the time of the 2020 election were excluded.) To put this in perspective, just under 160 million people voted in the 2020 election. In other words, there are roughly 12 million American citizens who cast a ballot in 2020 but who would be functionally unable to register to vote if the SAVE Act were passed due to not having easy access to these documents.
However, even if you have these documents, married women are still at risk of having their vote taken away from them. Eighty-four percent of women who marry change their surname, meaning as many as 69 million American women do not have a birth certificate with their legal name on it and therefore could not use their birth certificate to prove citizenship. The SAVE Act makes no mention of being able to show a marriage certificate or change-of-name documentation.
The SAVE Act specifies that people who register by mail must present their documentation in person. While the bill does not specifically address online registration or voter registration drives, those methods are usually treated like mail registration, so the bill would probably require that applicants show up in person at a government office before the voter registration deadline. That means the SAVE Act would functionally eliminate those three very popular methods of registration. This would be detrimental considering more than 37 million people either registered for the first time or updated their registration using one of these methods in the two years before the 2020 election. Another 17 million did so in the two years ending with the 2022 midterms.
Many who support the SAVE Act say that it is targeting specific groups like immigrants, who Trump has accused of voting illegally in the past two presidential elections. “The bill is clearly aimed at undocumented immigrants, but as non-citizens already cannot vote it doesn't really change things. I think it is addressing a fear that is not supported by the reality of voter fraud,” says Blangey. Many agree with Blangey, saying it doesn't make sense to make a law for something where there's already a law to prevent it.
While the thought of this bill passing and becoming a law is scary, Blangey says the chances of that happening are not as high as they might seem, “I do not think it is likely to pass. In the Senate you need 60 votes to advance legislation unless it is a bill about taxing and spending. Laws about voting need 60 votes and Republicans only have 53 votes in the Senate.”
We already have strict laws in place to protect the security of our elections. The right to vote is a basic American freedom. Our elected officials should be working to make sure that right is protected, not restrict it further and unnecessarily.
