U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks about the passage of the SAVE America Act, an election bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and require photo identification at the ballot box. The SAVE America Act and a California initiative add burdensome ID rules that would disenfranchise millions, especially married women.
Michael M. Santiago
Getty Images
Two legislative actions threaten the right to vote of millions of Americans: One the Senate is considering at the federal level, and another that’s likely to qualify for the California general election.
Under the guise of voter identification, both proposals claim to combat voter fraud — a statistically minor occurrence. These proposals are designed to bully and frustrate voters by erecting unnecessary barriers to voting, ultimately preventing many from casting their ballots.
In an attempt to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, the initiatives duplicate existing law and add restrictions that will unnecessarily complicate both our registration and voting procedures.
SAVE Act would disenfranchise voters
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act requires that only U.S. citizens be eligible to register and legally vote. But this is already established law. The SAVE America Act would, however, impose extra unnecessary and arbitrary steps for millions of Americans to meet the documentation requirements outlined in the legislation.
The burden of those redundant conditions will fall upon specific groups of voters: married women or anyone who has changed their last name, and the millions who lack ready access to a passport, birth certificate or naturalization papers.
To meet the SAVE America Act citizenship requirements, a voter’s last name must match the last name on their birth certificate. About 80% of American women change their names after marriage, necessitating additional proof of citizenship, such as a passport. But a passport is not free, and 52% of registered voters do not have one.
Requiring this citizenship documentation constitutes a poll tax, which was banned by the 24th Constitutional Amendment and found unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
According to the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement, 34.5 million Americans lack a driver’s license or state-issued ID card. The Brennan Center reports that 21 million Americans lack ready access to citizenship identification, with 3.8 million missing documents due to loss, destruction or theft.
Recent polling suggests that more than 80% of Americans support government-issued IDs to vote. It is unclear, however, if many of those who hold this position realize that identification verification is already required when registering to vote and that voter signatures are certified when voting by mail or at the polls.
Proponents of the SAVE America Act capitalize on this uncertainty, sensationalizing the rare instances of ineligible registrations and exploiting unfounded fears. As stated by the Bipartisan Policy Center: “Noncitizen registration is already rare, and noncitizen voting is even less common.”
Even the conservative Heritage Foundation, a proponent of the SAVE America Act and an architect of Project 2025, only documented 77 instances of noncitizen voting between 1999 and 2023, and each occurrence was appropriately investigated. But proponents obscure the facts to make an emotional, irrational appeal that somehow, our elections are being stolen from us by hordes of noncitizens registering and voting in our federal elections.
The fate of the SAVE Act and the voting rights of millions of Americans are being debated in the Senate. But closer to home, a statewide voter ID initiative is expected to appear on the California November General Election ballot.
State version of SAVE Act
Again, under the banner of voter ID, proponents at the state level are relying on fear and disinformation to disenfranchise millions of Californians with a different version of the SAVE America Act. Like the federal legislation, California’s interpretation would include the same identification and citizenship documentation requirements, with the identical oppressive results.
The sponsors of this initiative claim to have enough verified voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. The irony is that the same process used to verify signatures for voting is also used to validate them for a ballot initiative.
Essentially, the proponents of this initiative want it both ways — signature verification is sufficient for their purposes, but somehow it is insufficient to validate voters’ signatures at the polls and on their mail-in ballots.
The glaring contradiction of relying on the same verification process proponents criticize to advance their own agenda undermines their purported concerns about voter eligibility. It implies ulterior motives rather than concerns about election integrity, casting doubt on the initiative’s true intentions.
Just like the SAVE America Act, it’s never been about voter ID; it’s about voter suppression.
Barbara Smith is a retired teacher, native Californian, Placer County resident and founding member of the Placer Advocates for Students and Families, created to resist the targeted assaults occurring in our students and keep Placer welcoming and safe for all children.
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