Protect the right to vote:: Stop the SAVE Act

The SAVE Act requires all Americans to prove their citizenship with documentation unavailable to millions and upend the way every American citizen registers to vote. I oppose these measures because they illegitimately invert responsibility, requiring a person who is a citizen to prove they are eligible to vote. The American practice has traditionally required election officials to prove someone is not eligible to vote. Using the SAVE Act and executive orders to change historic American values like this is another step on the current administration’s pathway to authoritarian rule as these measures impose unnecessary and burdensome documentary proof of citizenship requirements that would disenfranchise a significant number of eligible voters. I note that 146 million American do not have a passport – and most people who do live in a blue state. Is this really what you are trying to achieve? Most American women change their name when they marry, and the SAVE Act does not allow for a marriage certificate to be used to prove identity. Again, name changes among women is much more common in red states than blue states, so if you’re trying to disenfranchise Republican women, this Act does that. The SAVE Act also places heavy administrative burdens on state and local election officials, who face criminal penalties for processing voter registrations without the required documentation, even in cases of administrative errors or where the applicant is a legitimate citizen. This could lead to the wrongful removal of eligible voters from registration rolls and encourages private lawsuits against election officials, fostering distrust and complicating election administration. Historical examples demonstrate the negative impact of laws similar to the SAVE Act: Kansas’s proof-of-citizenship law blocked over 30,000 eligible voters-more than 12% of registrations during its enforcement-despite nearly all being U.S. citizens, and was ultimately struck down by courts. Furthermore, the executive order excludes commonly accepted documents like birth certificates as valid proof of citizenship, which many Americans rely on, and does not adequately account for the diversity of valid citizenship documentation, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations. While ensuring election integrity is important, the SAVE Act’s approach is disproportionate to the actual risk of noncitizen voting, which is extremely rare and already subject to legal penalties and scrutiny. Instead of broad, burdensome requirements, targeted enforcement against rare violations would be more effective and less disruptive to eligible voters. For these reasons, I urge you to oppose the SAVE Act and the executive order’s implementation. I urge you to protect the voting rights of millions of Americans and maintain an accessible, fair electoral process.