What these patriarchal Christian Nationalist legislators want is a return to government run like it was by the signers of the Constitution – with only the richest White men being allowed to vote.
UPDATE: THE GREAT VOTER SUPPRESSION BILL has just passed through the House! Even more horrible, four Democratic-name-only legislators helped! Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii; Henry Cuellar of Texas; Jared Golden of Maine; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state.
How close can they get to their ideal before the midterms? A lot closer if they can pass the SAVE Act, a cynically named elitist bill that’s actually a form of voter suppression against women, poorer American citizens and minorities – all those whom the GOP suspects will vote for Democrats.
“More than 9% of eligible voters (21.3 MILLION PEOPLE!) have no proof of citizenship readily available. And at least 3.8 million don’t have these documents at all, often because they were lost, destroyed, or stolen.” Only about 48% of U.S. citizens have a passport, and driver’s license and tribal ID cards do not prove a person’s citizenship and so couldn’t be used to register under the SAVE Act.
It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in a federal election, because of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and because IMMIGRANTS AREN’T STUPID! (See more under “Deeper Dive,” below)
Action #1: Thank your Democratic legislators for voting “NO” on SAVE Act, and demand the passage of legislation that ensures that voters’ voices are heard.
Minimal call or email script to all your legislators:
I’m calling from [zip code]. I want [Rep./Senator ______] to vote “NO” on the GOP’s racist and misogynistic voter suppression legislation – the SAVE Act (H.R.22/ S.128 ), whether it’s by itself, attached to some “must-pass” emergency funding bill, or even if Trump makes another threat to shut down the government. USE EVERY TRICK MITCH McCONNELL TAUGHT YOU TO SLOW THIS DOWN!
More script if you want it: I also don’t like how it threatens to imprison election workers who register citizens with the wrong documents, or stops citizen groups like the League of Women Voters from registering voters.
More script if you want it:
I also want [him/her] to challenge their colleagues – if they protest that they really just want all Americans citizens to vote, they should also be supporting the following bill(s).
Reps.H.R.14 – John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act (Brownley and Carbajal are cosponsors)H.R.51 – Washington, DC Admission Act (Brownley and Carbajal are cosponsors)
- Senators
- S.51 – Washington, D.C. Admission Act (Padilla and Schiff are cosponsors)
Contacts
Action #2: Call your friends and family in GOP-controlled states and make sure they know about the SAVE Act, and get them to call their own legislators.
Minimal call or email script to all their legislators:
I’m calling from [zip code]. I want [Rep./Senator ______] to vote “NO” on the SAVE Act (H.R.22/ S.128), whether it’s by itself, attached to some “must-pass” emergency funding bill, or even if Trump makes another threat to shut down the government.
(Add if the [senator is on this list]): I saw [his/her] name as a cosponsor of this terrible bill and I am very angry [he/she] is participating in this scam.
This legislation will prevent American citizens in my neighborhood and in my [city/town/county] from voting, especially our older people, and it would keep our League of Women Voters from registering students and new voters like they’ve done for years. There is very almost no fraudulent voting, so this whole SAVE Act is very un-American and unpatriotic. I’ve been talking to my friends and family and we will be paying a lot of attention to how [legislator’s name] votes on this.
Contacts
- Who is my representative/senator?: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials
Deeper Dive
The SAVE Act was created to disenfranchise as many people as possible.
(TNR) “The SAVE Act pretends to create guardrails against noncitizen voter fraud, a vanishingly small problem that the nonpartisan Brennan Center found in only 0.0001 percent of jurisdictions surveyed after the 2016 election. Even The Heritage Foundation, which promotes the phantom crisis of noncitizen voting and Donald Trump’s lie that Democrats were purposely letting migrants into the country so they could vote, can’t fudge the numbers to back up its claims. The Heritage Foundation has tracked election fraud cases for decades, finding only 85 cases of alleged noncitizen voting between 2002–2023.
The SAVE Act is also unnecessary as it is already quite illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. So the law, which won’t help solve an already nearly nonexistent problem, makes very little sense—unless, of course, disenfranchising millions of women is the point.”
Yes, repealing the 19th amendment is the point!
- 19th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
However, repealing an amendment takes a really long time. Much faster to just create rules that make it almost impossible for many women without means to access the ballot box.
(TNR) “Eight in 10 married women in opposite-sex marriages took their spouse’s last name, and the bill could exclude over 69 million married American women whose names do not match their birth certificate. One Brennan Center for Justice study found that one third of American women do not have access to any documents with their current legal name.” The SAVE Act does not included proof of name change or marriage certificate as acceptable proof of identity.
(TNR) “[What the SAVE Act does with ruthless efficiency is create] a backdoor to the disenfranchisement of millions of people—especially women, who have consistently been more likely than men to vote for Democrats than Republicans in presidential elections since 1980. This is happening just as carving away women’s voting rights has become a hot topic of conversation among some of our country’s proudest Christian nationalist influencers.
In this respect, the references to The Handmaid’s Tale actually fall short of illuminating the forces working to lock women from the voting booths. Rather than a harbinger of some fictional dystopia, the SAVE Act reflects an erosion of women’s rights that has already been normalized in practice in many conservative corners of this country. The Christian right has been playing a long, long game, and it intends to take full advantage of a moment where the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court are all aligned in their direction. We can see what the future could hold from simply observing how women inside these oppressive systems of control already live. Just as Christian nationalist ideals have seeped into our laws and discourse, ideals from its companion worldview, Christian patriarchy, have set the groundwork for women’s voter suppression through the church.”
And thanks to Christo-fascist state legislatures, more women are being prosecuted for pregnancy-related “crimes.” Many states continue to deny people the right to vote if they have a felony conviction, even after they have completed their sentence. Incarcerated women’s disenfranchisement disproportionately targets women of color, with Black women incarcerated at 1.6 times the rate of white women. The SAVE Act will make the structural barriers to incarcerated voting even more extreme, as it would be almost impossible to access documentary proof of citizenship from behind bars.”
Here’s a quick guide to how Christian nationalism that’s infested our government, including our vice president, wants to reshape our government.
(TNR) “The threat to hierarchy is why women leaders are treated as a danger to family and nation. Women taking part in representative democracy as freethinking voters undermines the assertion that men were made by God to rule, and that in an ideal Christian nation, women to submit.”
Inquiring minds want to know… Can a woman vote if she’s not married? Let this guy who seems very comfy speaking for God explain…
Also screwed if SAVE Act passes – An estimated 68 percent of transgender and nonbinary adults do not have government-issued I.D.s that match their name and gender identity—and even then, the bill’s language does not make it clear that a driver’s license, even a real I.D., would pass muster because birthplace is not listed on those documents.)
Then they’ll continue backwards through our voting amendments.
- 24th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
- 15th Amendment (1870): The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
They can’t deny the vote to non-white people or poor people. But they can demand documents from them they cannot produce or afford to pay for.
(npr.org) “U.S. citizens of color are more likely than white citizens, who do not identify as Latino, to say they lack citizenship documents (3% of people of color compared to 1% of white people) or can’t readily access them (11% of people of color vs. 8% of white people). Independents are more likely to report that they don’t have documents (4%) compared to Democrats (2%) and Republicans (1%). They are also more likely to report not having ready document access (13%) than Democrats (10%) and Republicans (7%).“
Reporting from the Center for American Progress shows:
- 146 million American citizens do not have a valid passport (for context, 153 million Americans voted in the 2024 presidential election).
- In seven states, less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport.
- Lower income Americans would be dramatically affected: only 1 in 5 Americans with income below $50,000 have a valid passport.
The results fall in line with longstanding concerns among many election experts and voting rights advocates, who have warned that proposals — including the new Republican-backed bill in the U.S. House of Representatives — to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when signing up to vote in federal elections could risk keeping eligible voters from casting ballots.
“We’ve got a huge crisis on our hands when we think about the people who lack the documents required to prove their citizenship and identity. And we really need to think about the far-reaching implications for that when it comes to economic and social and voting access,” says Lauren Kunis, executive director of VoteRiders, a voting rights organization focused on voter ID issues that sponsored the survey alongside groups including the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school and the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.”
Why obtaining proof of citizenship can be a hurdle
The IDs required may be inaccessible or non-existent: (npr.org) “Kunis, VoteRiders’ executive director, says her organization has helped eligible voters overcome a range of barriers to obtaining citizenship documents. They may be stored inside a bank’s safe deposit box or tucked away at a family member’s home in another town or state. Some people may need support navigating a “bureaucratic doom loop” when trying to replace faded certificates, Kunis adds.
And for more than 3.8 million adult citizens, or about 2% of eligible voters, there’s no document to find at all, according to the survey’s estimates. That includes birth certificates.
“Older Americans and Black Americans, particularly in the South, are more likely to have been born outside of a hospital setting, meaning they didn’t receive a birth certificate automatically,” Kunis points out.”
Agencies that issue IDS are difficult to access. (Brennan Center – 2012) “The 11 percent of eligible voters who lack the required photo ID must travel to a designated government office to obtain one. Yet many citizens will have trouble making this trip. In the 10 states with restrictive voter ID laws:
- Nearly 500,000 eligible voters do not have access to a vehicle and live more than 10 miles from the nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. Many of them live in rural areas with dwindling public transportation options.
- More than 10 million eligible voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest state ID-issuing office open more than two days a week.
- 1.2 million eligible black voters and 500,000 eligible Hispanic voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. People of color are more likely to be disenfranchised by these laws since they are less likely to have photo ID than the general population.
- Many ID-issuing offices maintain limited business hours. For example, the office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. But only four months in 2012 — February, May, August, and October — have five Wednesdays. In other states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas — many part-time ID-issuing offices are in the rural regions with the highest concentrations of people of color and people in poverty.
They can deliberately close down agencies that provide ID’s in majority Black districts. (ALCU – 2015) “Despite state officials’ quick denial that the closing of 31 Alabama DMVs has nothing to do with race, it is a fact that the closures – mostly in poor, majority black counties – disproportionately hurts Black voters. Period… …The photo ID law already disenfranchises voters who are not able to obtain IDs. It has been reported that there are currently 250,000 registered voters who don’t have IDs so are now unable to vote in Alabama unless they either travel outside their county to get a driver’s license or take a burdensome trip to a separate location (which is even harder without a driver’s license!) just for a voter ID.”
People can’t afford to pay for an ID, making it an undercover poll tax. (Brennan Center – 2012) More than 1 million eligible voters in these states fall below the federal poverty line and live more than 10 miles from their nearest ID-issuing office open more than two days a week. These voters may be particularly affected by the significant costs of the documentation required to obtain a photo ID. Birth certificates can cost between $8 and $25. Marriage licenses, required for married women whose birth certificates include a maiden name, can cost between $8 and $20. By comparison, the notorious poll tax — outlawed during the civil rights era — cost $10.64 in current dollars.”
(travel.state.gov) A passport card costs $65 and a passport book costs $165.
How do election officials verify citizenship without documents?
(npr.org) “Federal law requires states to accept registration forms that call for applicants to swear under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens and review this warning: “If I have provided false information, I may be fined, imprisoned, or (if not a U.S. citizen) deported from or refused entry to the United States.” Most states also use applicants’ driver’s license or Social Security numbers to check people’s citizenship information in government agency databases.“
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights:
“Congress has a pivotal constitutional responsibility to safeguard free and fair elections and to ensure all Americans have the freedom to vote. The SAVE Act represents a dangerous departure from fulfilling this vital duty. The bill’s requirement of documentary proof of American citizenship to register to vote in federal elections is wholly based on falsehoods and, even worse, seeks to promote fear-mongering and divisive rhetoric. Instead of proceeding with this legislation, Congress should take actions that will help voters and promote democracy such as passing legislation that will strengthen protections against discrimination in voting and expand access to the ballot for all communities.
The SAVE Act is both unnecessary and dangerous. Our electoral system already deploys processes to ensure that our elections are secure and that only eligible voters are participating in our democracy. Voters in every state are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering to vote. State election officials already have in place existing systems to verify an individual’s voter eligibility and ensure voter rolls are accurate.
Moreover, federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Every single state bans noncitizens from voting in state elections. These protections have proven very effective, given that there is simply no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in elections. Indeed, it defies logic that non-U.S. citizens would risk their immigration status, the potential of criminal prosecution, future opportunity for naturalization, and freedom for themselves and their families by unlawfully committing an affirmative act to vote in an election in which they are prohibited from participating. The penalties for registering or voting as a non-U.S. citizen include imprisonment or deportation. The risks for any non-U.S. citizen to vote in a federal election are serious and steep, and our laws already effectively prevent significant unlawful voter registration and voting.
Introduction and advancement of this bill is the most recent example of what has been a string of recent efforts to make voter registration and voting more difficult, particularly for voters of color. False claims of non-citizen voting have been disingenuously used to enact more onerous voter identification requirements, limitations on voter assistance in languages other than English, and attempts to spread misinformation about voting. This legislation seeks to intimidate members of immigrant communities and communities of color from exercising their lawful right to vote. It also would make it harder for voters of color and naturalized citizens to register to vote and would prevent their full participation in democracy. These are already communities who are unfairly targeted by anti-immigrant policies at the federal, state, and local level. Congress should be doing everything possible to encourage and promote the political participation of these citizens, rather than seeking to diminish it through threats and fear tactics.
Legislation like the SAVE Act is intended to elicit irrational fear of the growing number of citizens of color. Congress should instead act to ensure that every eligible U.S. citizen has the freedom to vote unimpeded by discriminatory rules rooted in fear and division. We urge you to instead focus on passing real pro-voter reforms to ensure that everyone can fully participate in our democracy.”
The League of Women Voters:
“…there is absolutely no evidence of widespread non-citizen voting in federal or state elections...
“…By requiring documentary proof of American citizenship to register to vote, the SAVE Act will create unnecessary barriers for all eligible Americans to participate in the registration and voting process. The legislation is a blatant attempt to erode voter confidence ahead of the November elections and undermine election integrity based on lies about who is voting. These claims are born out of an anti-immigrant agenda in direct opposition to this country’s values.
“The right to vote is the fundamental promise of democracy, and we must protect it at all costs. We need our elected officials to prioritize impactful legislation like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act that would strengthen voting rights instead of bills that sow disinformation and fear. “
Resources
- (TNR) The Christian Nationalist Plot to Disenfranchise Women Voters – The SAVE Act, which purports to fend off the phantasmal threat of voter fraud, would throw millions of women off the voting rolls.
- (americanprogress.org) The SAVE Act: Overview and Facts – The SAVE Act would require all Americans to prove their citizenship with documentation unavailable to millions and upend the way every American citizen registers to vote.
- (rewirenewsgroup) Opinion: The SAVE Act Will Disenfranchise Entire Swaths of Voters
- (feminist.org) The SAVE Act: A Voter Suppression Tactic Disguised as Election Integrity
- (LWV) LWV Responds to House Vote on the SAVE Act
- (White House) STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
- (Civilrights.org) Civil Rights Groups Letter in Opposition to SAVE Act
- (ACLU) How Donald Trump’s Election Lies and Other Anti-Voter Policies Will Continue to Impact Our Democracy
- (Guardian) Will Trump, a felon, be able to vote for himself in November?
- (NYTimes) Heritage Foundation Spreads Deceptive Videos About Noncitizen Voters – The right-wing think tank has been pushing misinformation about voting into social media feeds. The Georgia secretary of state’s office called one video “a stunt.”
INDIVISIBLE VENTURA 