The SAVE Act - Voter Suppression Dressed in Patriotism

The so‑called “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act” is not a security measure  - it is a mass voter‑suppression machine dressed up in patriotic branding. The House is voting on it this week and it is a chillingly bad bill.

What it does: The bill would force every American to show specific “documentary proof of citizenship” - such as a passport or original birth certificate - just to register to vote. A driver’s license wouldn’t count.

Why it’s dangerous:

• 21.3 million eligible Americans do not have immediate access to these documents;

• Only 51% of Americans have passports, turning voting into a de facto passport tax;

• Young voters, older voters, and married women with name changes would be hit hardest;

• Election workers could face five years in prison for registering a legitimate voter who lacks the new paperwork.

  
  

The data trap: The bill forces states to purge voter rolls using federal databases that were never designed to verify citizenship. The Social Security Administration did not consistently track citizenship before 1981, meaning millions of older Americans could be wrongly flagged. In Alabama, a similar system wrongly removed 93.8% eligible voters.

The truth:  Non‑citizen voting is already illegal and extremely rare. The SAVE Act does not fix a real problem. Rather, it manufactures one by making it harder for eligible Americans to vote and intimidating the neighbors who run our elections.

Bottom line: The SAVE Act isn’t a safeguard. It’s a shackle. It weaponizes paperwork and bad data to silence millions of legitimate voters while pretending to “protect” democracy.