#1 What Is The SAVE Act? - The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act requires proof of citizenship for voter registration, including birth certificates, passports, naturalization documents, and some Real ID cards. Despite contradicting research, SAVE targets the “threat” of voter fraud. Representative Nikema Williams of Georgia has called it a “modern-day poll tax.” And she’s right.
#2 Who Does SAVE Affect? - Sixty-nine million women in the U.S. changed their last names when they married, or their legal name no longer matches their birth certificates. Transgender citizens are also affected, and Black Americans are disproportionately less likely to have passports or the citizenship documents that the SAVE Act requires. One in 10 Americans (20 million) cannot access their citizenship records easily. Some 3.8 million citizens have had their records destroyed, stolen, or lost. More than 146 million don’t have passports. And only 153 million people voted in the 2024 election. Margins of just 1-2% can change the results.
#3 What Is The History? - Institutional anti-Blackness is as old as the Constitution. Black babies born under Jim Crow were denied access to hospitals, and now as Black elders, they do not have birth certificates. Unhoused and incarcerated voters likewise face unique challenges proving citizenship. By 2012, when new laws required government-issued photo ID to cast ballots, 25% of Black Americans didn’t have it.
Creating barriers, delays, and anxieties to keep people out of the voting booth is voter suppression, pure and simple.
The Save Act isn’t “safeguarding” our votes. It’s moving the goalpost on what it means to be a “documented” or “legitimate” American citizen, by continuing to exclude the most marginalized of us.