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House GOP Approves 'Modern-Day Poll Tax' With Passage of Orwellian SAVE Act
"Congressional Republicans' anti-voting legislation is a power grab to silence the voices of American citizens—full stop," said one advocate.
Apr 10, 2025
The U.S. House's passage of a bill on Thursday that would require Americans to prove their citizenship with documentation when they register to vote was the Republican Party's response to the fact, said one progressive critic, that "every day more people are catching on to their big grift."
"H.R. 22 is how they plan to keep themselves in power," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, of the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. "Not by making life easier for working people, but by making voting harder."
The bill, proposed by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), would require all Americans to present a passport or an original copy of their birth certificate in person when they register to vote and update their voter registration—purporting to combat what Republicans have falsely claimed is a "problem that affects voters in nearly all 50 states": that of noncitizens voting in federal elections.
With noncitizens already barred from voting in federal elections, numerous analyses have found that very few ballots have ever been cast by people who aren't U.S. citizens. The Brennan Center for Justice found that noncitizens were suspected of casting just 30 votes out of 23.5 million in 2016—or 0.0001% of all votes cast.
But the Brennan Center was among many rights advocacy groups warning Thursday that more than 21 million Americans don't have easy access to their birth certificates or a passport, and could be disenfranchised by the SAVE Act.
"The House has just passed one of the worst pieces of voting legislation in American history," said Michael Waldman, the group's president and CEO. "The Senate must stop it. The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens. It should not become law."
According to Public Citizen, the SAVE Act has the potential to stop tens of millions of Americans from voting.
About 146 million citizens don't have a passport—nearly as many as the 153 million people who voted in the 2014 presidential election, Public Citizen noted.
The bill could also disenfranchise up to 69 million women and 4 million men who have changed their names after marrying, as they wouldn't be able to use their birth certificates showing their names at birth to prove their citizenship.
Voters in states including West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, where less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport, could be most impacted by the SAVE Act's requirements.
"The SAVE Act is an assault on a fundamental American freedom—our ability to vote," said Gilbert. "A set of eligible voters who were able to participate in past elections—some who have been registered for decades—will now be unable to cast their ballots."
Along with making voting harder for people in rural areas, naturalized citizens, low-income voters, Native Americans, first-time voters, and people of color—many of whom lack easy access to citizenship documents—the SAVE Act would end voter registration drives, upend online voter registration systems that are used in 42 states, and make it harder for voters to register by mail. States would also be required to establish programs to purge existing voter rolls.
President Donald Trump and the Republicans, said Mitchell, "want to weaken the opposition to their pro-billionaire agenda, even if that means taking away our freedom to vote. But we refuse to be silenced, and we will do everything in our power to stop their shameless power grab."
Four Democratic House members—Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Ed Case (D-Hawaii)—joined the Republicans in supporting the legislation.
Common Cause denounced the four Democrats for their vote "to suppress the vote of millions of Americans."
Common Cause president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón said the SAVE Act should be called "what it is: a modern-day poll tax."
"If this bill becomes law, millions of hardworking Americans will have to either shell out money getting the right papers to prove their citizenship or have no say in the next election for Congress and president," said Kase Solomón.
The point of the bill, she said, is "to make it so difficult to vote that many people will give up on voting all together."
In the Senate, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a companion bill earlier this year. The GOP, which holds 53 Senate seats while the Democrats hold 47, would need Democrats to join them to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold in order to pass the bill.
"Every U.S. senator who cares about protecting our right to the ballot must vote down this poll tax in any form," said Kase Solomón. "Common Cause and our 1.5 million members will make sure every senator hears from the people that this bill is dead on arrival."
Tony Carrk, executive director of the government watchdog group Accountable.US, said the SAVE Act also "paves the way to toss out legal votes and undermine election results that [the Republicans] don't like."
"Congressional Republicans' anti-voting legislation is a power grab to silence the voices of American citizens—full stop," said Carrk. “Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their allies in Congress are attacking voting by threatening Americans' ability to vote by mail, allowing Musk's [Department of Government Efficiency] to access sensitive personal information, and kneecapping states' ability to run free and fair elections."
"It should send a chill down the spine of every American," he said.
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The Worst Existential Threat to American Democracy Is Already Here: Voter Suppression
If the present strategy of voter suppression by the Republican Party is not stopped, the results of the midterms in two years and the 2028 presidential election are already decided.
Mar 01, 2025
The past few weeks have seen a deluge of devastation from the second Trump administration, which in less than a month has broken many democratic norms and customs and even ignored the Constitution in several ways.
During these head-spinning times, it's more vital than ever to zero in on the threats to our democracy. Today, one of the worst challenges we're up against is increasingly widespread voter suppression—a peril accelerating under President. Donald Trump and easy to lose sight of amid the chaos.
As we write, Congress is trying to pass the SAVE Act, which would require all citizens to produce a document such as a passport or birth certificate when they register to vote. It would apply even when they re-register after a move or, as many do, between elections. This new and unprecedented national requirement would severely limit online, mail-in, and automatic registration and has the potential to block millions of eligible Americans from casting ballots.
Universal suffrage is the heart of democracy but deeply threatened today.
The now almost-official Trump doctrine, Project 2025, also promises potentially disastrous consequences related to suffrage. The Department of Justice's Criminal Division would become responsible for investigating voting offenses, likely leading to bogus prosecutions of voters and election officials. The government would also gain access to voter lists that could facilitate purges of minority voters. Project 2025 also proposes restricting or abolishing programs that encourage voter registration.
We need to acutely oppose these potential dangers. To do that, it's helpful to understand the history of suffrage in our country.
America began its democratic experiment in the 1700s with a small demographic of eligible voters: white, male landowners. Voting rights were not directly in the text of the Constitution, but instead left to the states to decide.
While Americans no doubt rightly lament that voting was so restricted, it's worth recognizing that the very idea of suffrage was an audacious departure in and of itself—a profoundly progressive advancement that pivoted away from predatory monarchy with aristocracy that dominated the European continent. Indeed, some of the Founders expressed remarkably enlightened views on voting. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 that "the influence over government must be shared among all the people."
Even though our democracy was—and still is—deeply flawed, suffrage has always been its bedrock. Throughout our history advocates have fought to expand and enshrine suffrage, and today most state constitutions protect the right to vote. After the Civil War, several constitutional amendments codified and extended voting rights and since then legislation, such as the 1965 Voting Rights Act, has added further protections.
Sadly, however, voices from our country's Founders ring hollow when looking at our recent presidential election, which saw unprecedented organized voter suppression by the Republican Party.
Consider a report released this month by Greg Palast, acclaimed investigative reporter, forensic economist, and statistician. Using data from the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, he found that voter suppression led to 14.1 million voters being deemed ineligible or having their ballots disqualified. Note that Trump won by a margin of only 2 million votes.
Almost 5 million voters were purged from voter rolls without credible evidence, and another 2 million mail-in ballots were disqualified for minor clerical errors, e.g. postage due. Almost another 800,000 ballots were disqualified or rejected for other, non-credible reasons, and over 3.24 million new registrations were rejected without credible evidence.
Palast points out that historically organized voter suppression was overwhelmingly directed at Black and Latino voters such as Jim Crow Era literacy tests and poll taxes.
How did we get here?
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court changed course from its history of protecting voter rights when it debilitated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, removing the requirement that jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination obtain federal approval for new voting procedures. The result is a pernicious plethora of conservative state laws undermining or restricting voters.
A 2024 Brennan Center for Justice report found voter suppression has dramatically increased in the last 20 years. Many conservative states created obstacles by imposing unreasonable voter ID laws, and decreasing early voting times.
Unsurprisingly, voter suppression laws disproportionately impact communities of Black and Latino voters. For example, a 2022 Washington state audit reported that Black voters were 400% more likely than white voters to have their mail-in ballot rejected.
Universal suffrage is the heart of democracy but deeply threatened today.
What then is to be done to end this scourge of voter suppression by Mr. Trump's neofascist's advocates? Amid the chaos of the first hundred days of the second Trump administration, let us focus on defending these rights. If the present strategy of voter suppression by the Republican Party is not stopped, the results of the midterms in two years and the 2028 presidential election are already decided.
We are heading down a dark path reminiscent of a troublesome past. But we can be motivated by really great successes made possible by people's movements: The right of Blacks to vote was driven by inspiring and hard-won action, and women's suffrage struggles were also achieved through grassroots organizing.
The time is now. It will take all of us, joining in mass demonstrations and pushing our elected leaders to withstand the pressure and do everything in their power to block legislation and eliminate existing voter suppression regulation when—and wherever possible—before it's too late.
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Nebraska Supreme Court Orders Election Officials to Obey Law Letting Former Felons Vote
"This decision is a victory for Nebraskans, democracy, and the rule of law," said one ACLU attorney.
Oct 16, 2024
Democracy defenders on Wednesday welcomed a Nebraska Supreme Court
ruling that orders state election officials to comply with a law allowing former felons to vote immediately after they complete their sentences instead of waiting two years.
Nebraska's unicameral Legislature voted 38-6 in favor of LB 20 on April 11. Although Republican Gov. Jim Pillen declined to sign the bill, the measure took effect the following week, as the Nebraska Constitution allows lawmakers to enact laws without gubernatorial consent five days after a bill's passage if the Legislature is still in session.
After allowing the Legislature to pass the law, Pillen explained that Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Secretary of State Bob Evnen—both Republicans—"have identified significant potential constitutional infirmities regarding the bill" and encouraged them to "promptly take such measures as are appropriate" to redress these purported flaws.
In July, Evnen ordered county election offices to stop registering former felons who have not received official pardons, claiming LB 20 is "unconstitutional."
The Nebraska Supreme Court justices did not rule on the law's constitutionality, as the state constitution requires five members of the tribunal to declare legislation unconstitutional.
"Because the requisite number of judges have not found that the statutory amendments are unconstitutional, we issue a peremptory writ of mandamus directing the secretary and the election commissioners to implement the statutory amendments immediately," the court's split decision states.
The ruling referred to Patty and Selma Bouvier—the chain-smoking twin sisters of Marge Simpson from TV's long-running animated series "The Simpsons"—in a swipe at Hilgers and Evnen for overstepping their authority by opining on the constitutionality of LB 20.
"Only the Nebraska Supreme Court declares statutes unconstitutional," the decision states. "The [five-justice] supermajority requirement is also well known. Patty and Selma at the Department of Motor Vehicles may not be constitutional scholars, but they know that they are expected to follow the law."
Plaintiff Gregory Spung of Ohama said that Wednesday's ruling left him feeling "ecstatic."
"For so long, I was uncertain if my voice would truly count under this law," he said. "Today's decision reaffirms the fundamental principle that every vote matters. It's a victory not just for me, but for thousands of Nebraskans who can now exercise their right to vote with confidence."
ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy counsel Jane Seu said: "This is justice. Given the sheer scale of disenfranchisement that this decision corrects, there is no question that it will be remembered as one of our state's most consequential voting rights decisions."
"For Nebraskans who have been caught up in this mess for the last few months, the key takeaway is this: If you are done with all terms of your sentence, you are eligible to vote, and there is now a court decision backing that up," Seu added. "Now is the time to know your rights, get registered, and make a plan to vote."
The ACLU—which along with the ACLU of Nebraska, Civic Nebraska, and the law firm Faegre Drinker sued on behalf of Nebraskans seeking ballot access under the new law—said that the voting rights of approximately 7,000 people hung in the balance.
As The Associated Pressnoted following Wednesday's ruling:
Many of them reside in Nebraska's Omaha-centered 2nd Congressional District, where both the race for president and the makeup of Congress could be in play. Nebraska overall is heavily Republican but is one of only two states—the other is Maine—that apportions its Electoral College votes by congressional district. The Omaha-area district has twice awarded its one vote to Democratic presidential candidates—to Barack Obama in 2008 and again to Joe Biden in 2020. In a 2024 presidential race shown by polling to be a dead heat, a single electoral vote could determine who wins.
"This decision is a victory for Nebraskans, democracy, and the rule of law," ACLU Voting Rights Project staff attorney Jonathan Topaz said of Wednesday's ruling.
"Secretary of State Evnen and Attorney General Hilgers attempted to overturn two decades of rights restoration law by executive fiat and re-disenfranchise thousands of Nebraska citizens heading into a presidential election," he continued. "We are grateful the Nebraska Supreme Court invalidated this lawless attempt to reinstate permanent felony disenfranchisement and are thrilled for the thousands of eligible Nebraska voters who will be able to cast ballots in November and beyond."
"We also urge the state to extend its voter registration deadline," Topaz added. "Thousands of Nebraskans have lost months to register due to the secretary's unlawful directive, and they should be allowed sufficient time to register to vote ahead of the November election."
Nebraska's online voter registration deadline is Friday. In-person registration ends October 25. Early voting in the state began on October 7.
As voter registration surges ahead of the November 5 contest between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, GOP federal and state lawmakers are trying to make it harder to vote.
In July, for example, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas) Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
State-level examples include legislation signed last year by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
Last week, the Sentencing Project, a decarceration advocacy group, published a report estimating that 4 million U.S. adults are ineligible to vote in November's election due to felony disenfranchisement, including a disproportionate number of people of color.
Earlier this year, a federal court struck down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction. Similar legal battles are playing out in other states. The Minnesota Supreme Court recently upheld a law signed in 2023 by Gov. Tim Walz—the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate—restoring former felons' voting rights upon completion of their sentences.
Last December, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote while behind bars.
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