Don't SAVE U.S.!
- Mar 26
- 6 min read
The past several weeks, Trump and MAGOP officials have been going crazy online to get the “SAVE Act” bill passed. Their postings are pretty repetitious and seem to quote from the same memo – how 87% of Americans support Voter ID, and Americans are against illegal aliens voting, and Democrats want “illegals” to vote, and the “SAVE Act” doesn’t disenfranchise anyone or suppress anyone’s vote. Over and over.
The interesting thing is, no matter how many times you repeat something untrue, it doesn’t make it true. What you learned in grade school is actually correct – two wrongs don’t make a right. Nor do 348 wrong.
In fairness, I am sure that most Americans do tell pollsters that they support presenting identification when you vote. But that’s not what the “SAVE Act” is. And I’m sure when most people are asked if they support Voter ID, they have no idea what the “SAVE Act” would require of them, and it seems reasonable that many, if not most people would be against it – in part because it might disenfranchise them and suppress their vote.
I should take a slight pause here to note that one of the conditions the “SAVE Act” wanted was a priority of Trump -- a ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports. I’ve long wondered what on earth that had to do with voting, and it turns out (not shockingly) that I wasn’t alone in that. And last week, finally, Senate Democrats blocked the amendment to the bill that would have included that. But the mere fact that this has long been part of the bill, and a priority of Trump’s shows how repressive the thinking behind the bill was, and how little it has to do with actually making voting better.
But back to the MAGOP cries online.
Like explaining the obvious, that it’s actually already illegal for non-citizens for vote in elections. Of course. As almost every American should know. Especially MAGOP officials in Congress – and those in Trump’s administration, not including Trump since I’m not sure at this point what he “should” know. So, “illegals” voting is not actually an existing problem not covered by the law. Further, the penalty for an undocumented alien caught voting illegal is deportation – which means that the penalty for doing such an infinitesimally miniscule act is massively counter-productive, which is even less of a problem supposedly undermining our election system.
Additionally, there have been numerous studies on voter fraud, most notably one done by the Brennan Center that analyzed the 2016 election, and another by the very conservative Heritage Foundation (which has long made an issue of voter fraud) going back for decades– and both found that there was only around a .00005% instance of voter fraud! Which shows even more that voter fraud is not an issue of undocumented aliens undermining our elections.
But the numbers are even more damning to the MAGOP claims than even this. Because what the very conservative Heritage Foundation also found was that a close review of its study going back to the 1980s by the American Immigration Council documented just 68 total cases of noncitizen voting! That’s less than 5% of the .00005% of voter fraud cases in their database. All the other cases – of the .00005% -- involved U.S. citizens. Like people who voted twice, or felons who thought they were allowed to vote, or whatever other reasons. In other words, not only is voter fraud already illegal and not only is voter fraud almost non-existent…but when voter fraud does occur only .00005% of time – it’s almost never by undocumented aliens! Because (among other reasons) they know the penalty is not worth it.
And there's one important fact that MAGOPs tend to overlook about these studies (aside from simply just overlooking the studies). The reason these studies know about these microscopic number of cases of voter fraud is because...they were discovered! And presumably none were counted!
But there are other issues that MAGOP officials don’t mention when pushing the “SAVE Act,” or which don’t tend to come up when people are polled. And at the top of the list is that the “SAVE Act” is not about presenting your drivers license at a polling place when you vote, but proving who you are when you register to vote. And that’s where huge problems – and voter suppression – kicks in.
For starters, many, if not most people will need either their birth certificate or passport to register. And not only do most people not have a passport or have their birth certificate (or know where to get it), but both cost money, which is essentially a poll tax…which is illegal. No, it’s not much money, but it’s money. Just to vote. Which – let’s say it again – is illegal.
And further, high among those who this will affect are women. Because many women when they get married change their name. Which when they try to register to vote, won’t match what’s on their birth certificate. Nor will their passports match what’s on their birth certificate. And, of course, this will be the same for anyone who has changed his or her or their name. Including, but not limited to people like James Donald Bowman who changed his name to James David Hamel who changed his name to James David Vance who changed his name to “JD Vance.” At least he has the resources of the FBI who will likely be able to unearth his long-since buried birth certificate.
[Tangential Fun Fact: as it oddly happens, I not only have a passport, which is hardly uncommon, but I also – for reasons too long to get into -- have my birth certificate! Yet, though I’m covered, still understand why the “SAVE Act” is wrong, voter suppression and disenfranchises voters.]
So, no, Democrats don’t want non-citizens to vote, for the really basic reason that they can’t. And don’t. And they don’t want to repress legal citizens from voting – they want as many citizens to vote legally as possible – whoever they vote for. Which is why they are relentless in opposing this repressive and totally unnecessary bill. That tries to supposedly solve a "problem" that all actual evidence, all actual studies -- even those by deep conservatives -- shows doesn't exist.
Moreover, the bill includes a provision that would requires states -- that run their own elections -- to turn over all information on their private voters rolls to the Trump federal government. MAGOPs leave that critical issue out of their relentless cries about how 87% of Americans want Voter ID when casting a ballot as supposed proof that Americans support the "SAVE Act."
Speaking of which, just last night Democrats voted down another amendment to require photo IDs when voting. On the surface, this might seem like a good thing to have and a surprising "No" vote -- until you look under the surface and find that it would mean that people voting by mail would have to include a copy of their photo ID in the mail-in ballot, identifying themselves in what is supposed to be a secret vote. Something else MAGOPs fail to mention that the 87% of people polled don't likely realize when they say they support voter IDs when casting a ballot -- as supposed proof that Americans support the "SAVE Act."
Americans do want free and fair elections. The thing is -- they already have them! As all studies show. Just because Trump still can't handle that he lost the 2020 election and has whined so much his MAGA base believes him doesn't make his infantile, malignant narcissistic dementia angst true.
The whimsical thing of all this (if there is anything whimsical about voter suppression) is that Trump and MAGOPs seem to think these repressive efforts in the “SAVE Act” will only impact Democrats. In fact, the Washington Post did a study and found that more MAGOPs would likely be affected! And yet Democrats in Congress are still doing their best to block the bill. So that as many American citizens can vote as possible.
Whatever your ethnicity. Whatever your gender. Whatever your political affiliation.
Because we should make it as easy for American citizens to vote as possible. Not as hard.
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