Everything Donald Trump is doing has been done before by every dictator, despot and tyrant who ever came to power.
Which brings us to the SAVE Act, the full title of which is gag-inducing “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility.”
The title is straight out of “1984” where up is down and down is up. The bill does nothing at all to safeguard voter eligibility. Quite the opposite. It is designed to do one thing – stifle voter turnout and keep a markedly minority party in power for, as Trump said when touting the act, “100 years.” Not quite the 1,000 years of the Third Reich but the message is the same.
So, what does the act do? The Brennan Center and others have done deep dives and it’s critical every citizen who values democracy understands just what will happen if this horrific legislation is passed.
In a nutshell it requires that all voters must have with them documentary proof of citizens when they register to vote. If you are thinking “I am already registered,” think again. If the act passes every voter will have to re-register and show whichever acceptable ID they have.
According to the Brennan Center and others, roughly 21 million Americans lack easy access to such documentation, which includes passports or birth certificates. This is especially true among lower-income individuals with only one in five earning below $50,000 having a passport.
What about birth certificates? Many Americans, particularly older Americans of color, never had a birth certificate and records don’t exist. Sounds shocking today, but for many decades African- American women in the south were denied access to hospitals and were forced, or chose, to give birth at home and births were not recorded. During the Jim Crow era, many areas of the South did not want to issue blacks birth certificates to keep population rolls low. Because of that thousands of babies were born “off the grid.”
If you are a married woman, the act at the very least would force you to legally change your name on your birth certificate. This is not easy, and it’s hard enough I’m not going to even try to detail it. But click here for a blog that lays out what would be involved, then ask yourself how many women would be able to do that, could do that?
How many women could be impacted by the act? Estimates put that number at 69 million women or so. Reality is the women with less education and with lower incomes are less likely to tackle the process of a name change.
Those who lack birth certificates or have name issues can use a passport or a “real ID” drivers license. Problem is only about 45 percent of Americans have passports. If someone does not have a passport but wants to get one, we come back to birth certificates. Unless you are a naturalized citizen with a certificate of naturalization, you need a birth certificate.
OK. What about a “real ID?” A lot of people who don’t travel by air did not jump on the real ID, required now for domestic flights. To get one now could be problematic because you need at least one of the forms of ID that are hard to get for millions of Americans.
There is another category of voter impacted – those living overseas for whatever reason. Since in-person registration is required, how many are going to come back to the States just to register?
What else is buried in this bill that is designed to suppress voting?
For starters, online and mail voter registration would be eliminated. For those in rural areas, those without transportation, going to an election office would be a hardship. The MAGA assumption is such people would not vote for its candidates so make it hard for them to even register, even if they could overcome the ID hurdles.
Beyond voters, every election office in the country would be impacted. States would have to redesign forms, retrain staff, possibly change software and be able to handle much more walk-in traffic. Additionally, there could be penalties for even inadvertent every-day mistakes.
A note – as it stands the act does not eliminate mail-in or early voting but Trump still is pushing his minions in the House and Senate to include that in the act.
There you have it. The SAVE Act if passed would end democracy as we have known it.
There is an irony in this. Just as the Iran War and tariffs impact everyone, including MAGA cultists, so to would the SAVE Act. That just proves what so many MAGA cultists don’t seem to get. Once demagogues and tyrants take over, no one has any rights – not even those who helped them come to power.
Jordan is a pseudonym for a writer who has spent a career writing about politics and being involved in business and politics at several levels. To protect those who have been associated with him he uses the pseudonym.