A bill before Congress would upend voter registration and have grave ramifications for voting rights across the country. The SAVE Act (H.R. 22), an acronym for “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility,” would change the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) to require that Americans seeking to register or re-register to vote present a REAL ID-compliant identification that indicates U.S. citizenship, a passport or other citizenship document.
The Brennan Center estimates that more than 21 million American citizens don’t have up-to-date documentary proof of citizenship readily available. If enacted, the bill would disenfranchise tens of millions of eligible voters, including married women who would fall through the cracks simply for having changed their names since their documents were issued. Voters of color, 11% of whom lack access to citizenship documents as compared to 8% of white Americans, and those of lower incomes would more likely be affected.
Popular methods of voter registration, such as registration by mail and online voter registration, would end for all voters. Instead, registrants must present their citizenship documents in person to an election official. This would undo much of the work done on the voter ID bill Nebraska passed in 2023 and just implemented for this last election. Civic Nebraska’s work to host voter registration drives would be made impossible.
Fortunately, no members of Nebraska’s congressional delegation have yet signed on as co-sponsors to these measures. But we need them to protect our rights should the bills be scheduled for a vote.
Call your representative and tell them to protect voting rights and vote NO on the SAVE Act.
Kansas learned its lesson on how catastrophic these measures can be. Under the guise of preventing noncitizen voting, our neighbor state enacted a policy similar to this attempt in 2011 that ultimately blocked 12% of Kansans seeking to register for their first time. The policy was later struck down as an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, prompting criticism even from their Republican secretary of state. A federal judge concluded that only 39 noncitizens had slipped through the voter registration process to vote from 1999 through 2012 — an average of just three a year.
The 1993 National Voting Rights Act already requires that all applicants swear to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury. And Nebraska’s voter registration form provides this warning to registrants:
WARNING: Any registrant who signs this application knowing that any of the information in the application is false shall be guilty of a Class IV felony under section 32-1502 of the statutes of Nebraska. The penalty for a Class IV felony is up to two years imprisonment and twelve months post-release supervision, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.
It defies logic that anyone would intentionally risk a felony, imprisonment, and fines to cast a single ballot in an election — especially someone living as a noncitizen whose life would be derailed by arrest and deportation. Tell your congressman to take our voting rights seriously and vote NO on the SAVE Act.
