The SAVE Act is the latest weapon in Republicans’ campaign to determine who gets to cast a ballot in the United States.
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Earlier this month, Republicans threatened to shut down the federal government unless Democrats agreed to outlaw something that is already a felony. The GOP’s so-called SAVE Act would make it just as illegal as previously for noncitizens to vote.
Predictably, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) ultimately caved, but not before allowing Republicans to falsely proclaim that Democrats want non-Americans to vote.
As we have pointed out before, the SAVE Act is really a tool of the GOP to suppress the votes of undesirables — i.e., US citizens who are likely to vote for Democrats.
That’s the whole point!
Yes, ostensibly it’s about keeping noncitizens from voting, but that’s an imaginary problem and not the actual reason Republicans want to pass this legislation.
In reality, the SAVE Act is the latest weapon in the GOP’s campaign to determine who gets to cast a ballot in the United States.
For them, exercising that power to the greatest extent possible is necessary to enable them to ram an extreme (and largely unpopular) agenda down the throats of Americans.
It is obvious why: If you have to appeal to all eligible voters, then your platform has to reflect that. But if you can control who gets to vote, then you only have to appeal to that subsection of voters.
And that’s exactly what Republicans and their allies are doing under the guise of protecting “election integrity.” Every year, they are spending a tremendous amount of money creating a system that favors “their” voters while erecting barriers for everybody else.
As a result, the process of registering to vote (and retaining their eligibility) is generally more difficult for lower-income Americans, minorities, young and old voters… all Democratic voting blocs.
For example, college students are more likely to vote for Democrats, so Republicans want to make sure they cannot use their student IDs to verify that they are eligible to vote. This isn’t some theoretical exercise; it just happened in North Carolina, where a few hundred votes could decide whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the next president.
There are other hoops Republicans want these voters to jump through, such as requiring documents they may not have or forcing them to navigate an overly complex bureaucracy.
Another tactic is purging their names from the rolls for arbitrary reasons. For example, some states void the registrations of voters who have not cast a ballot in the past two elections; again, this is happening right now in North Carolina.
That seems insane. If, for example, a voter didn’t like a candidate in one election, and then couldn’t get off work to vote in the next one (or stood in line for too long and went home, which is another popular GOP voter suppression method), they have to re-register. And, of course, if they’re not made aware of their removal from the rolls, they may show up on Election Day only to be turned away.
There are good reasons for purging voters from the rolls — e.g., if someone moved or died — but that power should be used judiciously, not weaponized for narrowly partisan gain.
In addition, if you created a system in which only eligible Americans could cast votes, then it wouldn’t matter if the rolls were a bit outdated.
Such a system could exist… and it would be much easier to implement than the complex eligibility rules Republicans want to put in place.
If the federal government instituted automatic, universal voter registration, every native-born or naturalized citizen would be granted the right to vote on their 18th birthday.
All that would be required of them would be to keep their address current, and that can easily be done online or whenever they have to file for a change of address with any other government agency, such as the DMV, VA, Medicaid, etc.
Since every natural-born citizen is afforded this right at birth, there is no need to provide a birth certificate later on.
The only other way for Americans to be registered to vote would be on the day of their naturalization ceremony: “Congrats, you are now a US citizen. This privilege comes with the automatic right to vote.”
You do that, and it would be impossible for a noncitizen to register to vote, and illegally voting would involve multiple felonies.
In addition, this system would protect noncitizens who don’t understand the rules from voting accidentally.
And, if somebody — e.g., a violent felon — loses their voting rights, then the government can simply suspend their registration on the day of their conviction.
If they really cared about democracy, Republicans should love this! The system ensures that only Americans can vote, and it not only reduces red tape but also the size of government.
Those are all things the GOP claims to care deeply about!
So why are Republicans opposed to this type of universal voter registration?
Because they don’t actually want to create a system in which they do not get to exert some type of control over who votes.
Since the birth of the United States, there have always been factions like that. And the people trying to dictate who can and can’t vote have always ended up on the wrong side of history, whether they were supporters of Jim Crow laws or opponents of women’s suffrage.
Back then, voter suppression was a blunt instrument. Nowadays, it is much more of a scalpel. Unfortunately, thanks to modern technology, it’s a scalpel that can be wielded with extreme precision, which allows modern voter suppressors to target specific groups or zip codes with measures ranging from voter roll purges to polling station closures.
A universal and automatic registration system would not eliminate all of these tactics, but it would certainly make it harder for people to play politics with who gets to vote.
If only Republicans were genuinely interested in protecting the right of US citizens to vote instead of proposing covertly partisan legislation like the SAVE Act.
