The SAVE Act: Voter ID Is Not Racist and Not a Poll Tax, But It Will Secure Elections

Virtually every country requires a person to be a citizen to vote in national elections, and every country has a system to verify that status. In most cases, this is done through a national ID card. Yet when Republicans argue that the United States, the world’s premier democracy, should follow the same standard and require proof of citizenship to vote, they are labeled fascists, racists, Nazis, and misogynists.

Most Democrat counterarguments hinge on the claim that minorities and women lack proof of citizenship or are incapable of obtaining it. That assumption is far more racist than Republicans arguing that the United States should require voter ID.

The SAVE America Act is a Republican-backed elections bill that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and mandate photo ID to cast a ballot. The core objective of the SAVE Act is to move the voter registration system away from simple attestation, in which applicants merely sign a form swearing they are citizens, and toward a documentary proof standard.

Under the proposal, individuals registering for federal elections would be required to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in person. Acceptable documents typically include a U.S. passport, a birth certificate accompanied by a government-issued photo ID, or a naturalization certificate. Because these documents must be physically presented, the law would effectively end most mail-in and online voter registration.

The bill also requires states to cross-reference voter rolls with federal databases, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, to identify and remove noncitizens from registration lists. In addition, it introduces criminal penalties for election officials who knowingly register individuals without the required documentation.

While noncitizen voting is already illegal under federal law, this new legislation aims to enforce the law. The situation is similar to immigration, visa, and residency permit laws that have been in effect for decades but that Biden chose to ignore. Consequently, Trump has tasked ICE with cleaning up Biden’s open-border mess. The same is now true of requiring in-person ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Because a physical passport or birth certificate cannot be mailed to the government without significant risk of loss, and digital uploads are not accepted under the bill’s “present in person” language, the law would effectively end mail-in and online registration. Voters would have to travel to a DMV or election office to register, which is the only way to verify identity and citizenship with 100% certainty.

The only other truly secure option would be to institute a biometric ID system, which most people, on both sides of the political fence, would be hesitant to agree to.

The most common argument liberals make against voter ID is the claim that millions of Americans who are legal citizens would be disenfranchised because they do not have easy access to the necessary documents, and that this disproportionately affects minorities. Only about half of Americans have a valid passport.

Roughly 80% of married women change their names, and because a birth certificate features a maiden name, many women would be required to provide additional “linkage” documents, such as marriage licenses, to prove their identity, adding layers of bureaucracy. Young voters may not have a passport or their own copy of a birth certificate. Elderly voters, whose original records may be lost or difficult to retrieve, are seen as the most vulnerable to these rules.

There are several flaws in this argument. Saying that 50% of Americans lack a passport means that 50% have a passport and are fine. Those who do not have a passport are also heavily skewed toward children, who are not qualified to vote. Furthermore, there is overlap among these categories. Of the 50% who do not have a passport, did Democrats bother to find out what percentage do not have a birth certificate or a REAL ID and therefore need a passport?

The claim that 80% of women change their names when they get married is probably accurate, but that does not mean that 80% of women lack proper ID. Given that women make up roughly 50% of the population, unless all people without passports are women, it is mathematically impossible for 80% of women to lack identification.

Have Democrats done actual research to determine what percentage of women do not have proper ID? Have they done research to determine whether minorities lack ID? And since identification is a requirement to live a normal, adult life, should those people not simply obtain proper ID?

To get a driver’s license, individuals need identification, classes, and a test, yet most adults manage to navigate those hurdles. Should they not be able to do the same with a passport or voter ID?

The other argument Democrats make is that the fee paid for an ID or a passport amounts to a poll tax, which is unconstitutional under the 24th Amendment. This is a spurious argument that makes little sense. A poll tax, by definition, would be a direct tax imposed for the act of voting itself. A passport fee or ID fee is several steps removed from voting, and the documents are useful for many other purposes.

It also seems odd to assume there are large numbers of adults who currently have no form of identification and have no intention of obtaining one. Furthermore, a replacement birth certificate typically costs about $25 to $30, depending on the state, and is valid for a lifetime. Amortized over an average lifespan, that works out to roughly three cents per year. A basic U.S. passport costs about $130 and is valid for ten years, which comes out to about one dollar per month.

Many U.S. veterans gave their lives for the right to vote. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the rest of us can afford to give one dollar per month to secure it.

One of the Democrat arguments, after accusations of racism and misogyny, is that there is very little voter fraud, so there is no reason to make voting more difficult for everyone to address a small problem. Opponents and many election researchers, including the Bipartisan Policy Center and the MIT Election Lab, argue that while mail-in voting is more vulnerable in theory, actual proven cases of fraud are statistically tiny.

However, this is circular logic, because they base the number of fraud cases on the number of voter fraud convictions, of which there are very few. That is because they actively suppressed investigations into voter fraud in 2020.

Effectively, the argument is that because no one has been charged or convicted of fraud, fraud does not exist. This is similar to crime statistics under Biden. Democrats claimed crime was down in major cities because official statistics, based on convictions, said crime was down. In reality, criminals were being released with no bail, many never returned for trial, and were never convicted. As a result, crime was actually skyrocketing, while the official crime rate appeared low.

Ironically, if the SAVE Act is passed, convictions for voter fraud will spike, because there was no enforcement before. Democrats will then claim the SAVE Act made voting less secure, pointing to the increased number of convictions as proof.

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