1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

The SAVE act strains a gnat to swallow a camel. On the surface, requiring voters to supply documentation to register to vote, and to actually vote, sounds only reasonable. Presumably, the act seeks to reduce voter fraud. No one wants vote fraud. But the acts seeks to solve a problem that does not exist, other than in the fevered imagination of crazed or craven politicians. I'm confident that you are actually aware that voter fraud does exist - but in such miniscule amounts as to have no impact on American elections. The Brookings Institute found, for example, in 6 swing states in 2020 there were 475 POTENTIALLY fraudulent ballots cast. Out of 25,000,000 ballots cast. That's a whopping 0.000019% of the tally. Between 2003 and 2023, the Heritage Foundation did discover that non- citizens cast ballots. 24 of them. Out of millions of ballots cast. Again, gnat sized impact on the camel's hide of American voting. The SAVE act will create onerous, federalized demands on voters that will prevent, by conservative estimates, far more eligible voters from casting votes than the fraction of a percent that currently sneak through existing cracks. Millions, not a few hundred, of voters will not have access to the proposed required documents. Especially women who have married and so changed their names, and those who have difficulty obtaining birth certificates or passports. 9% of all eligible voters do not have, or do not have easy access to, documentary proof of citizenship. 52% of registered voters do not have an unexpired passport with their current legal name. 11% of registered voters do not have access to their birth certificate. Millions of eligible voters will be prevented from voting to solve a .000019% fraud issue. It's just silly, not to mention unethical and un-American. Here's what happened. Kansas already tried this. One value of independent state voting is to compare and contrast methods. Before the restrictive voting registration laws were enacted, Kansas sought to solve the problem of the .0002% of non citizens who apparently registered and voted in that state. The new law prevented roughly 31,000 eligible voters from registering and voting. That equated to 12% of voters. Strain the gnat, swallow the camel. I am adamantly opposed to the SAVE act. Every state already demonstrably Safeguards American Voter Registration. I do not want fraud or non citizens voting. Neither do you. I'm sad that hundreds do every year. But I'm angry that we may create a system that bars far more American citizens from actually voting because they cannot acquire the documents or change t heir name through marriage. Don't strain a gnat to swallow a camel. Vote no on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act.