The SAVE ACT is Voter Suppression!

Doug Smith

April 30, 2026

Ever watch a chase scene on TV, where the person being chased throws stuff around behind them to slow down the chaser?  Chairs, closed gates, racks of clothing, trash bins, anything to keep the chaser for catching them.  In the political world, we call that Voter Suppression, where the party in power creates all kinds of hindrances to voting so that the party “chasing” them can never catch up. 

The SAVE Act, H.R. 22, passed in the U.S. House and still up for debate in the Senate, is just the latest in a long line of attempts at Voter Suppression by the Republican majority.  Have you heard about it?  It’s a strict new Voter ID law that requires numerous documents to prove citizenship — such as a passport, birth certificate or naturalization documents — to register to vote. People would also need to show certain government-issued photo IDs at the polls.  In addition, the bill would all but eliminate mail-in voter registration and voting. 

Of course, current law mandates some of these documents already, plus many states (like Iowa) require a photo ID or other documentation to prove citizenship before voting.  The problem is that many people don’t have a government-issued photo ID or a driver's license.  This would affect over 30 million citizens nationwide.  Under the SAVE Act, student IDs and other state licenses or ID cards would not be accepted.

But the hardships of the SAVE Act would fall primarily on women.  Over 69 million married women in the United States do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name, and they could face additional hurdles if they need to register to vote.  They would have to produce a birth certificate and their marriage license.  Divorced women would have to produce their divorce papers plus any additional marriage license if they remarried.  How many people have carefully saved all these documents and can produce them at will? 

Do we really need this law?  Voting by non-citizens is already illegal, and the number of people convicted of voter fraud is vanishingly small compared to the total number of votes cast.  All Trump and the Republicans are really trying to do with this law is load up the process with so many hindrances to voting that many people won’t even try to navigate all the hurdles. 

You get the picture.  Republicans are so afraid of losing in the midterms this November that they’re madly throwing every crazy tactic they can think of behind them to keep YOU from being able to vote them out of office!