Vote NO on H.R. 22, the SAVE Act

I am writing as your constituent to urge you to vote NO on H.R. 22, the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act is legislation in search of a problem. If passed, this bill would restrict voting access to hundreds of thousands of Americans without making our elections any more secure. This bill would require all Americans to provide proof of citizenship, in person, when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. This requirement puts an unnecessary burden on every American seeking to exercise their right to vote, especially trans people, only half of whom have updated documents. I am concerned this bill would discriminate against countless trans voters—and millions of other Americans who are citizens but do not have a passport or access to their birth certificate. Trans people face time-consuming, confusing, and expensive legal barriers when updating passports and birth certificates, which is why only about half of trans people have documentation that reflects their chosen name. The requirements of H.R.22, combined with the existing challenges trans people face updating their documents, would significantly reduce trans Americans’ access to the ballot. Only one in three trans Americans have their chosen name reflected on all of their identity documents and only one in five have their gender reflected on all their documents. Under the SAVE Act, countless trans voters will face burdensome requirements to register or update their registration, which voters must do any time they move, change party affiliation, or change their name—including name changes due to marriage. In addition to impacting trans people, H.R.22 would restrict ballot access for the more than 140 million Americans who do not have a passport, the 21 million Americans who do not have access to their birth certificate or other documentation, or the millions of Americans who have changed their legal name, including cisgender women who take their spouses’ last names. H.R.22 will restrict the voting rights of millions of Americans without making our elections any more secure. That is why I, as your constituent, urge you to vote “NO” on H.R.22.