1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to oppose the SAVE Act (H.R. 22 / S. 128) and any expanded version, including a so-called “SAVE Act Plus” or “Super SAVE Act.” While this dissertation may read like others, it is too well written to change it much. It is just how I feel so please do not ignore. This legislation is not about election security. It is a coordinated effort to suppress lawful voters by turning registration into a bureaucratic obstacle course. Voting rights are the most important issue to me. Here are the problems: •The SAVE Act creates paperwork traps that can deprive eligible voters. By requiring some form of proof of citizenship, the bill can make voter registration a nightmare . Millions of married women have changed their last names, meaning their current legal name does not match the name on their birth certificate. Under this bill, those women could be denied registration unless they can locate and present additional documents. The same risk applies to voters who move, change their registration data but the old registration remains also. Voting should not hinge on flawless paperwork. Second, the SAVE Act would eliminate or severely disrupt modern voter registration. Online registration, mail-in registration, automatic registration, and voter registration drives rely on streamlined systems that cannot easily collect or verify citizenship documents. In practice, this bill would force many Americans to register in person, rolling back decades of progress and disproportionately harming rural voters, disabled voters, students, seniors, and working Americans with limited access to government offices. Third, the legislation weaponizes fear and enforcement. The SAVE Act imposes criminal penalties on election officials who process registrations without the required documentation—even when applicants are eligible voters. It also invites private lawsuits against local officials accused of insufficient enforcement. This creates a challenging issue to correct if election administrators are incentivized to reject valid registrations rather than risk prosecution or litigation. When officials are afraid to register voters, democracy suffers. Fourth, expanded versions of the SAVE Act envision aggressive voter roll purges and sweeping data collection. These proposals would require states to identify and remove alleged non-citizens from voter rolls using error-prone databases that have repeatedly led to eligible voters being wrongly removed. Voting rights organizations warn that Native American, Alaska Native, and rural voters—many of whom live far from document-issuing offices—would be especially burdened by new in-person documentation requirements. Although the Senate previously stopped the SAVE Act, Donald Trump and his allies are escalating pressure to revive it in a more extreme form. Some supporters have openly discussed attaching the bill to must-pass legislation, while others have suggested dismantling long-standing Senate rules in order to force it through. This is not democratic reform—it is an attempt to change the rules because they cannot win under the current ones. Maybe Trump and the like should just have better policies. Voter suppression is not always loud. Often, it works through inconvenience, confusion, and quiet disqualification—ensuring voters only discover the problem when it is too late. I urge you to: 1. Publicly oppose the SAVE Act and any expanded version. 2. Refuse to allow voter suppression measures to be attached to must-pass legislation. 3. Hold hearings on the real-world disenfranchisement these proposals would cause. 4. Support policies that expand access to the ballot, rather than restrict it. Our democracy depends on participation, not paperwork traps.