Plus, two out of three ain’t rigged
Just so I don’t bury the lede: Republicans will sacrifice their own voters if that’s what it takes to retain power. Their voters are expendable. I’ll get to why in a bit.
A 40-ish guy walked up on the street on Tuesday. He was curious to ask what I was doing. He said he’d been in D.C. on Jan. 6th, 2021. I didn’t press for details, but told him I was on the sidewalk as part of an effort to turn out more voters in November. But does voting do anything, he asked. Sometimes you vote and don’t get what you want. Um, that’s democracy, I replied.
What I didn’t point out was that Donald Trump claimed throughout the 2016 campaign that the election would be rigged against him. He won. Trump claimed throughout his 2020 reelection campaign that the election would be rigged against him. He lost. Trump claimed he’d been robbed. You know what happened on Jan. 6th. During his 2024 campaign, by then a convicted felon and twice impeached, Trump claimed again that the election would be rigged against him. He won. If U.S. elections are rigged, that’s working for Trump, isn’t it? Two out of three ain’t bad.
Yet again, however, it’s the Republicans trying to rig the elections. Their latest ploy is demanding immediate passage of the SAVE Act. The GOP is hyping it as a photo ID bill with help from the media.
See? See how popular requiring a photo ID to vote is, they argue? So why do Democrats oppose SAVE? It’s about preventing voter fraud, they argue (after scaremongering all-but-nonexistent voter fraud for 60 years).
How many times must the press (and anchors like Kaitlan Collins) fall for that diversion?
What are Democrats afraid of? Disenfranchising large swaths of legitimate voters in the name of supposed “election integrity.” To register to vote under SAVE, one must provide documentary proof of citizenship, something this country has not required in 250 years. The marketing of SAVE as a photo ID bill is a diversion. It’s another Republican voter suppression bill.
Here’s what the Bipartisan Policy Center says about the vote-suppressing impacts of SAVE’s requirement that voter registrants produce a birth certificate, a U.S. passport, a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, a Certificate of Citizenship, or a Naturalization Certificate:
Although at least one of these documents are in theory available to most citizens, not all voters have them readily available. According to recent studies:
- 9% of all eligible voters do not have, or do not have easy access to, documentary proof of citizenship.
- 52% of registered voters do not have an unexpired passport with their current legal name.
- 11% of registered voters do not have access to their birth certificate.
Given how well voter ID polls, marketing SAVE as a voter ID bill makes it a Trojan horse for the proof of citizenship and other features. Republicans mean to dare Democrats to vote against photo ID ahead of the November election. So long as the press falls for the diversion, it’s helping Republicans with their vote suppression effort.
Republicans sacrifice their own
Furthermore, consider what happened when Kansas added this documentation hurdle to ballot access:
Kansas offers a case study of how a documentary proof requirement would likely play out in practice. Before the law took effect, noncitizen registration in Kansas was exceedingly rare, accounting for about 0.002% of registered voters. After adoption, the documentary proof of citizenship requirement prevented roughly 31,000 eligible citizens, or 12% of all applicants, from registering to vote. In short, the law prevented far more citizens from registering to vote than noncitizens.
That, of course, is the Republican plan. And that’s red-state Kansas! Key elections these days are often won on thin margins. GOP lawmakers know how to slice them.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick observed in 2013 that voter ID bills designed to suppress the votes of Democrats might also disproportionately suppress the votes of Republican women. I wrote about this phenomenon at Crooks & Liars earlier that year:
In a report issued in April, the NC State Board of Elections estimated that 176,091 registered Democrats are without the state-issued photo identity card most will have to pay $20-$32 for before they can vote under VIVA. Plus 73,787 unaffiliated and 1,126 Libertarian voters. Among registered Republican voters, 67,639 have no photo identity cards. Over 2/3 are women.
Let Republican relatives and acquaintances know how little their party thinks of them
Why would Republicans make it harder for Republicans to vote? To give their subterfuge that stylish, party-neutral look. And because they believe their bills will harm more Democrats than Republicans. They’re playing percentages. They see sacrificing their voters as acceptable losses in their quest for power. Requiring proof of citizenship to vote is no different. The GOP is just upping the ante with SAVE.
Per the Democratic Committee on House Administration, SAVE would also “gut voter registration by mail and online,” and “disallow states from accepting the NVRA’s mail voter registration application unless the applicant presents DPOC [documentary proof of citizenship] in person at the office of an appropriate election official.” In person. Recall that when GOP-led states require citizens to obtain IDs for voting at the DMV, they have a habit of closing offices in Democratic areas. What might happen with elections offices after passing SAVE? Trump also wants to add a ban on men in women’s sports and on transgender surgeries for minors. Apparently, vote suppression wasn’t enough red meat for his shrinking base.
SAVE is another of the GOP’s Orwellian bills like the Bush-era “Clear Skies” initiative that repealed key provisions of the Clean Air Act, and the “Healthy Forests” initiative that promoted logging of old growth forests. Promoting SAVE as a voter ID bill is misdirection.
Trump, of course, is scared to death of losing control of Congress, and he’s desperate to plop his stubby thumbs on the scales “strongly” with SAVE. He could face investigations and a third impeachment. Trump believes if SAVE passes, Democrats “probably won’t win an election for 50 years and maybe longer.”
For now, it appears that Senate Majority Leader John Thune does not have the votes to clear a filibuster and bring SAVE to a vote. Which is why Trump wants the filibuster gone. Anything to keep him from facing a House and Senate controlled by Democrats for his last two years.
“Senate Republicans are planning for days of marathon sessions as they try to put Democrats on defense over their controversial elections bill backed by President Donald Trump,” reports Politico. So DO NOT assume that Trump won’t pull a rabbit out of his hat. If you have Republicans representing you in the Senate (or John Fetterman), let them hear from you over the weekend.