Guest Column: We oppose the SAVE Act — you should too

The U.S. House and Senate have introduced the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility” (SAVE) act, a bill that would require in-person presentation of citizenship documentation when registering to vote, even though voters in every state are already required to affirm their citizenship status when registering. The League of Women Voters opposes this act because it presents unnecessary obstacles to the voting process and has the potential to disenfranchise millions of voters. We urge you to review the details of the SAVE Act and voice your opposition to your representative.

 Impacts of the SAVE Act include the following:

• Most Ohio citizens register to vote online at voteohio.gov or by completing a paper voter registration form and mailing it to the Board of Elections. The SAVE Act would require that everyone registering to vote present “documentary proof of United States citizenship in person to the office of the appropriate election official.” Does that mean that you would need to drive 40 minutes to the Board of Elections in Hamilton to present your proof of citizenship? Yes, it does.
•  One document that voters could use to prove citizenship is a certified birth certificate, if issued in the voter’s current name. But 69 million women have changed their name because of marriage, so that form of verification isn’t enough for them. They would require additional documentation, as would anyone else who has changed their name for any reason.
• A U.S. passport can be used to show U.S. citizenship, but 146 million Americans don’t have a passport. While approximately half of all American adults possess a passport, two-thirds of Black Americans do not. Evaluated from an economic point of view, only one in five Americans with income below $50,000 have a passport.
• Voters who think they aren’t impacted if they’ve already registered to vote may be surprised to learn that a change of address constitutes a new voter registration and would require the same in-person presentation of citizenship documents. Each year, 12% of Americans move, meaning millions of people already registered to vote would be impacted.

This is a nonpartisan issue; voters of both parties would see barriers to voting put in place for no good reason. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare; despite the many investigations launched in an attempt to show otherwise, only a small number of cases of fraud are ever found. Credentials already provided at voter registration sufficiently identify voters as US citizens. 

We urge you to contact your U.S. House and Senate representatives to voice your opposition to the SAVE act. The Capitol switchboard phone numbers are House: 202-225-3121 and Senate: 202-224-3121.

Kathie Brinkman is Co-President for Organization of the League of Women Voters of Oxford. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.