Flashpost: What does the SAVE Act save?

The thing about the SAVE Act is that technically, women who have married and changed their name can go through the various steps necessary to get a Real ID and/or passport to vote. And for most people who have means, time, and resources it won't be an impossible hurdle.

But the thing is, history has shown us that hurdles on voting are never without costs (usually intentional). ON paper, literacy tests make sense. I spend my entire life arguing for education on the basis that an educated voter is essential to a functioning democracy. Yet, we know that enforcing literacy tests in the 20th century operated as a way to prevent Black Americans from voting and it worked.

Likewise, there are reasons for poll taxes (less convincing than literacy tests, but still reasons). The most popular reason was that having someone pay to vote made sure that the person voting invested in the system. The argument being if people had to pay for it they would take it seriously. In practice, it operated as a poverty exclusion. Poor people (usually also Black) were not allowed to vote, even though every decision made by the electorate influences their life.

So let's talk about the SAVE Act. The stated purpose of the SAVE Act is to remove non-citizens from federal voting registration rolls. On the surface, like literacy tests, this is a valid reason to create a requirement for voting. Yet, one has to ask why the SAVE Act is necessary when it is already illegal for a non-citizen to vote (See 18 USC 611). As the law stands now, if a non-citizen votes they can be punished with a fine, jail time, or deportation.

The data also already shows that the cases that have fallen under this law, meaning the number of non-citizens that vote, are minuscule (And that makes sense because if you are a non-citizen who is trying to avoid being discovered and deported why in the heck would you vote in an election where you can easily be traced on a paper trail?). Thus, if there is already a law in affect that deals with the situation AND the violation of that law is already so low - why do we need the SAVE Act? I would argue for one or two reasons:

1. The GOP has a narrative about non-citizens and about voter fraud that this law supports and they are simply trying to appear to solve a problem that does not really exist. AND/OR

2. They understand that this will have a chilling affect on voter registration for poor people, especially poor minorities and poor women - a voting base that is not favorable for the GOP.

If the 20th century has taught us anything it is that the government entity adding qualifications to voting, usually has a vested interest in suppressing voter turnout.

For the New Act see: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22

For the Voting by Non-Citizens law see: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:18%20section:611%20edition:prelim)%20OR%20(granuleid:USC-prelim-title18-section611)&f=treesort&edition=prelim&num=0&jumpTo=true