What SAVE Act promotes is red tape, not elections
By Mary Ellen Klas / Bloomberg Opinion
Listen closely to the arguments of the House Republicans pushing the so-called “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act” and you realize they aren’t interested in solving the problem the bill purports to address: non-citizens voting in federal elections.
If you take the proponents of the bill at their word — that the measure is needed “to increase integrity of elections” because “non-citizen voting decreases confidence in our elections” — you’d expect a targeted proposal aimed at increasing enforcement with the goal of curbing the small percentage of non-citizen votes cast in any election.
Instead, the SAVE Act uses a bazooka to kill a gnat. It prohibits state election officials from registering anyone to vote in federal elections unless the person “provides documentary proof of United States citizenship” and produces, in person, either a passport or birth certificate. The House voted 220 to 208 to support the bill on April 10, with five Democrats joining Republicans.
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But the SAVE Act’s approach would disenfranchise large swaths of voters. Its new hurdles could prevent millions of people from registering to vote. Data show that most of them would be married women, people living in rural areas or voters serving in the armed forces; groups that, incidentally, tend to vote for Republicans.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-what-save-act-promotes-is-red-tape-not-elections/