SAVE America Act Is Republicans’ Next Ploy To Steal The Midterms
The Republican Party has a popularity problem. After solidifying control of Congress and the presidency in the 2024 election, they made the big brain move of exacerbating existing problems and creating whole new ones. As a result, President Donald Trump’s approval is at a historic low, and issues that should be a strength for Republicans, like immigration, are now weak spots for them. With their efforts to redistrict their way into a midterms win faltering, Republicans are now trying to push forward legislation that will make it harder for people to vote.
According to the New York Times, the House passed the SAVE America Act last week, which would require voters to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, as well as attaching a copy of a valid ID to mail-in ballots. Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) introduced the “Make Elections Great Again Act,” which is somehow an even stricter version of the SAVE America Act. It would require proof of citizenship, impose a total ban on voting by mail, and grant the Department of Homeland Security access to voter rolls.
“The Make Elections Great Again Act is one strand of spaghetti, the Save America Act is another strand,” New York Rep. Joseph D. Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Administration panel, told the Times. “They’re going to throw the whole bowl at the wall.”
At what point will Republicans finally go mask off and stop pretending that they even remotely care about what the Founding Fathers intended? Everything being pitched is the opposite of free and fair elections, and they’re doing it all in the name of a lie.
The GOP has hitched its wagon to the great lie that undocumented people are voting in our elections in droves. They’ve presented no tangible evidence of the problem, but have continued to treat it as if it is one of the greatest ills facing the nation.
There’s this idea among Republicans that stricter voting ID laws are going to exclusively hurt Democrats, but that’s not the case. There’s a strong chance that many of the voters who live in rural, red states don’t have easy access to their birth certificate or have obtained a passport. In fact, a study by the Brennan Center found that 21.3 million Americans don’t have immediate access to proof of citizenship. Do Republicans think that all 21.3 million people are registered Democrats?
There’s also the fact that the SAVE Act will cause headaches for married women, given that their ID and birth certificate will likely have a different last name. Considering that 55% of white women voted for Trump in the last election, they’re making it much harder to vote for a group that overwhelmingly went for the GOP.
The legislation comes as the GOP’s effort to redistrict their way into a midterms victory appears to be stalling out. The gains made in the Texas redistricting effort have been neutralized by the California map, with Maryland and Virginia currently undergoing redistricting efforts that,if successful, could undercut the gains made by Missouri and North Carolina.
The Republican Party fascinates me. They’re like that kid in high school who would come up with elaborate ways to avoid doing any work, who can’t seem to realize that if they put as much effort into doing their schoolwork as they did avoiding it, they would probably be crushing it. Instead of curbing ICE, introducing meaningful guardrails on AI, and addressing growing inequality, Republicans are putting all their energy into making it harder for people to vote.
While yes, we should be concerned about Republican efforts to make voting harder, they’re telling us what the plan is. We know how they’re going to play the game. If we want to win, it’s on all of us to make sure we get everything we need to vote, and to come out in such massive numbers that the Republicans can’t do anything but accept defeat.
SEE ALSO:
SAVE And MEGA Acts Could Help Trump Take Over Our Elections
House Passes SAVE Act Voting Bill That Will Disenfranchise Millions