Hudson Valley Rep. Mike Lawler voted to pass the Save Act, which has gone through a few iterations, but at this point would require citizens to produce either a passport or a birth certificate to vote.
The legislation still needs to pass in the U.S. Senate before it becomes law.
“We are simply saying you should have proof of citizenship and photo ID. That is not a controversial stance,” Lawler told Capital Tonight last week. “Thirty-six states require photo ID. I don’t know why Democrats and the State of New York oppose this. Eighty percent of voters support it.”
But Eliza Sweren Becker, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, argues that the bill is problematic.
“It’s not a voter ID bill. It’s a ‘show your papers’ bill, and that policy…would block millions of Americans from voting,” she said. “Brennan Center research shows that 21 million Americans don’t have ready access to a passport or a birth certificate and roughly half of Americans don’t have a passport altogether.”
According to President Donald Trump, the SAVE Act is necessary to stem rising voter fraud in the country, but Sweren Becker argues that’s a bogus claim.
“Study after study, state investigation after state investigation all confirm only American citizens vote with vanishingly rare exceptions,” she said.
It’s not clear when the U.S. Senate will take up the SAVE Act or if the Republican-led chamber has enough votes to break a Democratic filibuster.
