The SAVE America Act hurts Republicans.
It doesn't inconvenience educated, prosperous people (i.e., disproportionally Democrats).
It discourages the occasional voter, the poor, the less educated, culturally traditional women, and the elderly (i.e., disproportionately Republicans).
For reasons of principle and what is good for public engagement in our democracy, Democrats should continue to oppose the SAVE America Act. But in the event that Trump muscles it into law, Democrats can enjoy one silver lining. It helps Democrats.
The SAVE America Act does not change the law that requires voters to be U.S. citizens. The law would change how to document citizenship. About 12 percent of registered voters do not have ready access to the types of documentation that satisfies the proposed law's conditions. This is about 28.4 million citizens.A U.S. passport is the gold standard for being able to vote. Prosperous, educated people are more likely to have a current passport than are people with less interest or capacity to travel abroad. For better or worse, Democrats have become the party of prosperous, educated people. Forty-six percent of Americans have a passport; 56% of Democrats do, only 43% of Republicans.
Under the proposed SAVE America Act, there is an alternative to having a passport: a photo ID, plus a certified copy of a birth certificate with the person's full name, the name of at least one parent, the place of birth, signature of the authorizing agent, and the official seal. No photocopies allowed; a certified original only. About 80 percent of Americans can meet this hurdle, and here Republicans slightly more than Democrats, 84 percent to 79 percent.
The problem for Republicans is that the name on the birth certificate needs to match the name on the photo ID, and women who take their husband's surname on marriage have a new name. Republican wives are more likely to do that than Democratic wives. Twenty percent of Democratic women keep their birth name; only 10 percent of Republican women do. There is a strong skew toward women with graduate and professional degrees keeping their birth names; those women skew Democratic.
The SAVE America Act requires that the documents presented be current, which skews against the demographic of the elderly who allow their passports or driver's licenses to expire. My father did, about the time he turned 90. The oldest Americans skew Republican (though not my father.)
Theoretically, the various pluses and minuses balance out between the parties. Theory isn't reality. Regular, persistent voters tend to skew Democratic, which is why Democrats over-perform in special elections and mid-term elections. Trump's populist appeal has been underestimated in polls that measure "likely voters" because the MAGA base includes a disproportionate number of people who vote rarely or on impulse. These occasional voters are those least likely to jump through the hoops to have a proper, certified birth certificate or valid name-change documents.
Intuitively we might think that Hispanic voters would be the ones with the most difficulty in having all their paperwork together, since it might require a different document for many of them: naturalization papers. But their recognition that their citizenship might need to be demonstrated, not presumed, is why this group is the one most likely to have citizenship paperwork available. Hispanics partially drifted away from Democrats in 2024 but are once again a solidly Democratic-skewing group.
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| Bipartisan Policy Center |
If the SAVE America Act passed, there would be a busy period of document-chasing and grumbling about the hassles of bureaucracy, and government making easy things hard, and Trump trying to suppress votes. That is a bad message for Republicans at the worst time and circumstance for the least interested people in putting up with the hassle.
Trump is chasing the chimera of millions of "illegals" voting. The irony is that his solution suppresses the legal vote of many of his own supporters.
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4 comments:
The State of Oregon requires that you show an ID when you buy cannabis (marijuana). If you can show your ID to buy weed, then you can show your ID to vote. It's boloney to think that someone (even if they are poor) can't go to the DMV and get an ID. It's a lame excuse by people who want to cheat and allow illegal aliens to vote.
Photo ID is not enough, which is the point. To show citizenship one needs a passport or a photo id plus a certified copy of a birth certificate plus original documents that show the pathway of any name changes. Over half of Republican adults do not have a passport. The author of this comment conflates "illegal aliens" with U.S. citizens who lack a passport or ready access to birth certificate documents. The author is deeply into the Trump cult and is not able to read or absorb information that is contrary to the official orthodoxy of Fox/Breitbart/GOP-talking=points.
At one time, we were the guiding light for emerging democracies around the world. We came to the aid of countries attempting to conduct an open and fair election. We were successful and thanked for our assistance. Turning to look at the 2020 election, where Trump lost, we see a propaganda campaign of disinformation starting with the firing of Trump's own election overseer, who said the 2020 election was the most secure election in our history. Over 60 court challenges by the Trump team to "prove" the election was stolen were lost in open court due to lack of evidence. This started Trump's effort to remake the courts with "his judges." This absurdity of a stolen election by Trump must stop! Every time Trump calls attention to the 2020 election, he reminds everyone that he is a LOSER.
Yes, we've all heard Trump's s**t-for-brains talking points. It's criminal that it comes from our nation's highest office.
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