1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

I am writing to you today as a concerned constituent to express my strong opposition to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. While this legislation is presented as a measure to secure our elections, it is a solution in search of a problem that does not exist, and its practical effect will be the systematic disenfranchisement of legal American voters. As you are aware, it is already a federal crime for non-citizens to register or vote in federal elections under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. States already have robust systems in place to verify eligibility, and exhaustive studies have shown that non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare. The SAVE Act would impose unnecessary and burdensome "documentary proof of citizenship" requirements that would specifically target and disenfranchise several groups of legal voters: -- Impact on Women: Millions of American women who have changed their names due to marriage or divorce do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name. By requiring documents that many people do not keep in their pocket—and that often require secondary "bridge" documents like marriage licenses to verify—this law creates an unconstitutional and immoral barrier to the ballot box for women. -- Redundancy and Fear: This legislation is built on a foundation of misinformation. Promising to "save" an election system from a nonexistent threat is a scare campaign designed to undermine public trust and make it harder for eligible citizens to participate in our democracy. -- Ethical and Moral Grounds: I know that you, like many in leadership, hold Christian values. I must remind you that the Bible expressly prohibits "bearing false witness." Promoting a narrative of widespread non-citizen voting when there is no proof to support it—and using that narrative to justify laws that keep citizens from voting—is a violation of that moral principle. Our democracy is strongest when more citizens participate, not fewer. I expect you to stand up for the truth, protect the voting rights of your constituents (especially women and those without easy access to expensive documentation), and vote NO on the SAVE Act. I look forward to hearing your position on this matter and seeing you take a stand for a fair and accessible election system.