{"id":7010,"date":"2025-05-03T03:50:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T03:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7010"},"modified":"2025-05-27T23:36:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T23:36:26","slug":"house-passes-save-act-disenfranchising-millions-of-american-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=7010","title":{"rendered":"House Passes SAVE Act, Disenfranchising Millions of American Voters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Sunita Sohrabji<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On a 220-208 vote April 10, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act \u2014 SAVE \u2014 potentially stripping away the ability to vote for at least 40 million Americans.<\/p>\n

All House Republicans, along with 4 Democrats, voted for the bill \u2014 HR 22 \u2014 which now heads to the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass. Several pundits predict the measure faces long odds in the Senate, and is unlikely to pass, because it would need the support of 7 Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am leading the fight in the Senate to push back against this effort to disrupt our already safe and secure elections. This bill cannot pass the Senate. I will fight every step of the way to block it,\u201d said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, after the House vote. He earlier issued a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0about his opposition to the bill.<\/p>\n

In-Person Registration Only<\/h2>\n

The SAVE Act<\/a>\u00a0would require folks registering to vote to present proof of citizenship \u2014 passport, US birth certificate or naturalization papers in person at an election office. The Act would end voter registration drives, mail-in and online registration.<\/p>\n

More than 150 million Americans lack passports. 70 million married women do not have birth certificates that match their current names. Overall, 21 million eligible voters lack birth certificates, predominantly in rural areas. Many are older people, who have consistently voted in elections, but were born at home, and not issued a birth certificate.<\/p>\n

Additionally, transgender people would largely lack identity documents that match their names on their birth certificates. They would also be ineligible to vote. Disabled voters who lack the ability to present their proof of citizenship documents in person, would also be stricken from election rosters.<\/p>\n

\u2018Voter Suppression, Plain and Simple\u2019<\/h2>\n

\u201dThis is voter suppression, plain and simple,\u201d said Rep. Joe Morelle, D-New York, at a March 31 press conference in Washington DC, organized to oppose the SAVE Act. Leaders from several civil rights organizations spoke at the news conference to express their opposition to the SAVE Act.<\/p>\n

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who introduced HR 22 in the House, has alleged that \u201cmillions of illegal aliens\u201d are voting in US elections, including \u201cbad actors\u201d seeking to undermine election results.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to preserve this republic, we must uphold what it means to be able to vote in a U.S. election. I am grateful that my colleagues answered the call and passed the SAVE Act, as this serves as a critical first step to ensure that we maintain election integrity throughout our country. It is now up to the Senate to take up, pass, and send this important bill to President Trump\u2019s desk,\u201d said Roy in a statement after the bill was passed.<\/p>\n

Villainizing Immigrant Communities<\/h2>\n

John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice \u2013 AAJC, said in an April 10 statement: \u201cWe are dismayed by the House\u2019s decision to advance the misnamed SAVE Act, which is an unwarranted attack on voting rights for all who are eligible. In reality, the SAVE Act exploits divisive claims about voter fraud to undermine the democratic process and villainize immigrant communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while it aims to target noncitizens, it will make registering to vote significantly more difficult for the over 21 million Americans who do not have ready access to the required forms of identification.\u00a0 Let\u2019s call the SAVE Act what it actually is: fraudulent fear-mongering designed to exclude voters who are considered unfavorable,\u201d stated Yang.<\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethnic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySunita Sohrabji On a 220-208 vote April 10, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america-under-attack","category-regular-column"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7012,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010\/revisions\/7012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}