Democracy Docket: MAGA is Spouting Nonsense on the SAVE America Act. Here’s the Truth.
The Death of Truth is now, um, informing the most fervent arguments on behalf of Trump's bill to seize control of the mid-term election - and those beyond as well.
By Matt Cohen /Democracy Docket
As lawmakers duke it out on the Senate floor over the SAVE America Act, MAGA Republicans and anti-voting activists are working overtime on social media to garner more support for the voter suppression measure.
Should the bill clear the U.S. Senate — which isn’t looking likely, given that it doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to clear a Democratic filibuster — it would require people to provide proof of citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote. People would also need to show a government-issued photo ID at the poll to cast a ballot. And there’s an amendment that places restrictions on mail voting — including barring universal mail-in voting.
But you wouldn’t know these things if you were only following coverage from the SAVE America Act’s loudest cheerleaders. Instead, influential right-wing figures and GOP lawmakers are pushing misleading claims and obfuscating facts about the measure.
Let’s break it down:
Rumor: Noncitizens are voting en masse in federal elections.
At the heart of the SAVE America Act’s very foundation is the myth that noncitizens are illegally voting en masse. But the facts are that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and when it does happen, it’s incredibly rare. Instead, the GOP has effectively turned a non-issue into a widespread voting panic about a problem that doesn’t exist.
And yet, the Trump administration is still trying to push the narrative, even when their own investigations yield extremely few instances of noncitizen voting.
In a recent interview, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said that the U.S. Department of Justice’s audit of nearly half the states’ voter rolls only turned up “dozens and dozens” of illegitimate votes. To put that in perspective: 50 illegitimate votes would amount to just 0.000007% of the roughly 680 million votes cast in the last five national elections.
Rumor: People won’t have to reregister to vote.
The main provision of the SAVE America Act is the requirement for people to show proof of citizenship — via either a passport or birth certificate, and a valid form of government I.D. — in order to register to vote.
Though an earlier version of the bill required voters to show their passport or birth certificate at the polls every time they vote, the measure has since been amended so that people only need to do that when they register to vote — or reregister, which is poised to be a huge burden for tens of millions of voters. And anti-voting activists have purposefully obscured this fact.
Reregistering to vote is necessary for anyone who moves.
Just over 40 million people have moved each year over the past five years according to recent American Community Survey data. While registered voters will stay registered without having the burden of proving their citizenship, in their campaigning for the SAVE America Act, anti-voting activists and MAGA Republicans are conveniently leaving out details about how many people move each year who will have to reregister — and the obstacles they’ll face to do so should the measure pass.
Rumor: The SAVE America Act will pay for you to get a new photo ID to vote.
Democrats have attacked the SAVE America Act as a modern-day poll tax for the financial burdens it places on the millions of Americans who don’t have the proper proof of citizenship to register to vote, or correct ID to cast a ballot. Passports aren’t cheap: It’s $165 to get a passport and $130 to get it renewed — throw in an extra $60 for expedited delivery.
In order to cast your ballot, though, voters will need to show a government-issued photo ID, which most states don’t require. For voters casting their ballots by mail, they’ll need to provide a copy of their ID along with their ballot.
Though obtaining an ID — like a driver’s license — isn’t as expensive as a passport, it’s still a financial burden to those who don’t have one. Conservative lawyer and anti-voting activist Cleta Mitchell claimed that the SAVE America Act would provide a free photo ID for anyone that doesn’t have one — but the bill doesn’t say that. What the bill does is ensure that voters have access to a printer, copier, or scanner in their local government building to make a valid copy of a photo ID.
Rumor: The SAVE America Act won’t make it harder for certain groups to vote.
Among the biggest criticisms of the SAVE America Act is that it’ll establish barriers to the ballot box for numerous groups of voters — married women, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. Anti-voting activists have vociferously argued this isn’t true — to diminishing returns.
For the people who need to reregister to vote — or register for the first time — they’ll need to provide proof of citizenship via a passport or certified birth certificate, along with a photo I.D. And this creates a lot of headaches for people whose names don’t match those documents — like married women or trans people, who’ve had name changes. A 2023 survey found that 79 percent of married women changed their last name.
The burden of reregistering to vote is especially onerous for senior citizens, who are consistently one of the most reliable voting blocs and also more likely to move as they age — into retirement communities or nursing homes.
And a 2023 survey found that only 46 percent of adults over 65 have a passport. These proof-of-citizenship requirements — along with the bill’s restrictions to mail-in voting — would similarly affect millions of voters with disabilities.
Women who have to go through the extra steps to register to vote should just ‘spare the feminist drivel.’
Not really a claim, but Mitchell seems to admit the extra burden the SAVE America Act puts on women and thinks they should just suck it up.
Matt Cohen is a senior reporter at Democracy Docket, the leading digital news platform dedicated to information, analysis and opinion about voting rights and elections in the courts. Subscribe here.
Enrico Pinto cartoon for The New Yorker.