Donald Trump wants you to have to prove your citizenship before registering to vote. He does not care how onerous or expensive it is to acquire these documents. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act will disproportionately affect married women whose last names no longer agree with their birth certificates. Birth certificates and marriage certificates cost money to acquire. You may have been born a U.S. citizen overseas or are a naturalized citizen and must get documentation from a foreign country. This SAVE Act requires you to go in person to your registrar’s office, which, in rural areas, may be an hour away, without public transportation. The disadvantaged population, minorities, females and naturalized citizens will be targeted by this bill. A passport can solve this problem if you have a spare $165, but, to acquire one, you will still need to prove citizenship first. A REAL ID driver’s license does not prove citizenship. Every time you move, you must go in person to notify the registrar of the address change. Voting by mail will be severely restricted and will only count if received by Election Day. Will every currently registered voter have to reregister with proof of citizenship? Can registrars handle tens of thousands of voters descending on their offices?
The Heritage Foundation, a far-right group, has made its database public. From 1999 to 2023, of over 1 billion votes cast, there were 77 cases of noncitizens voting. Voter fraud is a lie. Trump wants to suppress a select group of voters. As Kristi Noem said Feb. 13, “When it gets to Election Day, we have been proactive to make sure that we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead the country.”
We do not need to fix what is not broken.
Please contact your elected representatives in Washington to protect our right to vote, not suppress it with a lie.
Al Liebeskind
Millsboro
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