1. United States
2. Mont.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to oppose the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. This legislation represents dangerous government overreach that would prevent millions of eligible American citizens from exercising their constitutional right to vote while solving a problem that does not exist. More than 21 million Americans lack access to the additional documentation this bill would require for voter registration. The SAVE Act would prevent most voters from registering with just their driver's license because licenses typically don't indicate citizenship. Instead, voters would need less common documents like a U.S. passport or birth certificate. This creates an unnecessary burden when Americans are already required to verify their eligibility when registering to vote. The impact would be particularly severe for people of color, married individuals who have changed their names, young people, and elderly voters. A married person whose birth certificate shows their maiden name would face significant obstacles. Even worse, these requirements would apply not just to new registrations but every time a registered voter updates their address or political party affiliation. The bill would devastate modern registration systems. In 2022, more than 7 million Americans registered by mail and almost 11 million registered online. The SAVE Act would severely threaten mail registration and require complete overhauls of online registration systems. It would also mandate frequent voter purges based on faulty data that have historically removed eligible citizens from voter rolls. Perhaps most troubling, the SAVE Act would criminalize election workers who help register someone without the correct documents, threatening them with up to five years in prison even if the registered voter is actually a citizen. This creates a chilling effect on officials simply trying to serve their communities. Laws already exist to ensure only citizens vote, including deportation for non-citizens who attempt to vote. This bill is an unnecessary solution that would disenfranchise millions of eligible American voters. I urge you to oppose the SAVE Act and protect every citizen's freedom to vote.