Democrats’ Absurd Objections to the SAVE Act Will wavering Republican senators let these asinine arguments sway them?
A.F. Cronin – The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE Act, passed on a party-line vote in the House of Representatives last week. A lone Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas), joined House Republicans in voting for the legislation. The rest of the House Democrats voted against the bill.
The bill has been sent to the Senate for consideration. Enough Republicans in the Senate oppose the legislation to put its passage into serious doubt.
The SAVE Act would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, and to present a valid photo identification before casting a ballot. Moreover, instead of states automatically sending vote-by-mail ballots to every voter on their voter rolls, a registered voter must request a vote-by-mail ballot. And the bill requires states to purge their voter rolls every 30 days.
This means states must keep their voter rolls up to date and remove all non-citizens, non-residents, and dead persons from their official lists of registered voters. This provision is designed to prevent vote-by-mail ballots being sent to ineligible voters and, potentially, being cast by unscrupulous political operatives.
Democrats oppose these requirements. For example Congresswoman April McClain Delaney (D-Md.) claims that the SAVE Act will force “millions to pay $130 for documents and navigate more red tape. When voting becomes more expensive in money and time, that’s not security — it’s suppression.”
Director of policy at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Demetria McCain claims that the SAVE Act is “about disguising voter suppression techniques aimed at disenfranchising black voters.” Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted that “Republicans just passed a bill that would disenfranchise 70 million married American women. Under the SAVE Act, women who took their spouse’s last name and don’t have an updated passport or birth certificate would be turned away at the polls.” And the Brennan Center for Justice says, “Roughly nine percent of the population has moved within a state in the past year, but many will not update their driver’s licenses until they expire.”
Other Democrats disingenuously claim that the cost of acquiring voter ID is a “poll tax,” that purging voter rolls of dead people and non-residents will “disenfranchise” voters who haven’t gotten around to updating their state of residency, and that the SAVE Act is an attempt to nationalize Jim Crow laws.
These objections are spurious. The idea that spending a little extra time and money to acquire necessary documents is “suppression” insults the imaginary “millions” who would supposedly be cowed by these basic requirements. Burrowed within this unsubstantiated claims is the suggestion that “poor people” are too stupid to handle simple administrative requirements and that state and municipal bureaucracies are too torpid to process requests in a timely, efficient manner.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez stated that “70 million married American women will be disenfranchised because they don’t have the sense to update their IDs or to correct document discrepancies.” The claim is an insult to all women, including to Ms. Cortez herself.
Furthermore, the notion that updating voter rolls every thirty days is unfair because “many” people who move to a new state are too busy or too lazy to transfer their driver’s license is absurd. Most people understand that they must update their licenses when they change states of residence.
In fact, New York, Illinois, Tennessee, and Texas require new residents to exchange their licenses and register their vehicles within 30 days of becoming a resident. In California, you have only 10 days. Michigan requires new residents to update their driver’s license immediately. And all states require valid identification and documentation when updating a driver’s or vehicle registration.
Voting should be at least as rigorous as registering a car in a new state. Americans manage such mundane bureaucratic chores every day; in fact, it is almost impossible to function in this nation without current photo ID, vehicle registration, insurance, and licensing. If, by some chance, your documentation is lost or destroyed, most states reissue documents through a quick, easy, and inexpensive process. Some don’t, but none makes it impossible.
Every American citizen has a constitutional right to vote. However, there is no requirement to exercise that right. On the other hand, it is the government’s duty to ensure free, fair, and transparent elections. Ensuring that voting is convenient is not a requirement of election law.
Requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote or having to present a photo ID when casting a ballot is neither an unreasonable nor an extraordinarily inconvenient request. And although sending ballots to every name on (unpurged) voter rolls, allowing unsupervised ballot-harvesting by paid political operatives, positioning drop boxes in random parking lots, and instituting early in-person voting may make voting more convenient, it also makes it easier to cheat.
If people are “disenfranchised” because they are too incompetent to acquire proper identification, or too lazy to change their place of residence in a timely manner, or too shortsighted to request a mail-in ballot, or too busy to make it to the polls, then so be it. They don’t cast their vote. Voting shouldn’t be easy. Elections should be serious, well regulated, and strictly administered affairs. They are the bedrock of the Republic.
If the results of an election is in question, “losers” are not sanguine. For example, in 2019, a petulant and vindictive Hillary Clinton famously called President Trump an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election. Of course, she presented no evidence to support her claims. Election officials didn’t, either.
Many recent elections have been decided by a few percentage points. According to the Brookings Institution, Trump garnered 1.5% more of the popular vote than Kamala Harris, and he won the key swing state of Arizona by only 5.5%. These are not huge margins. The nation is closely divided. A few percentage points can swing an election either way.
There needs to be a quick, transparent, and unimpeachable process to verify the vote and quell people’s doubts. The SAVE Act aims to do this. If more funding is needed to make elections transparent and fair, the funds should be allocated and bipartisan oversight established.
The Declaration of Independence says, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The “consent of the governed” is determined by elections. Stolen elections, or the perception that an election was stolen, subvert this “consent.” If voters can’t — or don’t — trust the electoral process, the legitimacy of the government is undermined.
American elections must be impeccable if faith in government, our elected representatives, and the rule of law are to be restored. The SAVE Act will help restore integrity to American elections and, hopefully, reassure both parties that elections are on the up-and-up. If the election process remains under suspicion, the legitimacy of our representative government will remain in doubt.
And a house divided doesn’t remain standing for long.
SF Source American Thinker Feb 2026