Save America from the ‘SAVE America Act’

After my wedding in 2020, I updated my driver’s license. I brought in my marriage certificate and had my name switched on my ID. I never changed my passport. It doesn’t expire until 2028, and I didn’t want to spend $130 to change five letters.

With Donald Trump’s new ‘SAVE America Act’ (cue eye roll), my Real ID, birth certificate and passport wouldn’t be enough to verify that I’m a U.S. citizen. No, I’d have to either dig out my marriage certificate or pay $130 to get a new passport in order to register to vote.

Requiring someone to pay to get a copy of their marriage certificate, a passport or any other newly required documents sounds a lot like a poll tax to me.

I do keep good track of my documents, so at the end of the day, it probably wouldn’t be very difficult for me to get my information together to register. But that’s not the point.

Approximately 69 million American women have taken their spouse’s last name. I am fortunate to be informed on what I would need to do to prove my identity, but many of them may not know the new “papers” you must show the government in order to exercise their constitutional right.

I have always been a loud advocate for same-day voter registration. Nearly half of states, including Iowa and my former home of Wisconsin, allow voters to register the day of the election. But that means more than half of states do not allow this.

In both situations, married women are in jeopardy of being turned away from the polls.

For federal elections, many states require preregistering to vote between 15 and 30 days before the actual election. Imagine going to register and discovering you don’t have the correct documents.

A passport surely wouldn’t show up in time to vote. A marriage certificate may come in on time, but if you’re like me, you may have had your wedding in a different state. I would have to wait on that courthouse for the records. For the 25+ states that don’t allow same-day registration, these women would be disenfranchised, even with a Real ID in their pocket.

When I voted in Wisconsin, I was in college. Because of this, I had to re-register to vote every year. I was registered in my hometown; then I had to register at college. In college, I had to re-register every year because I switched dorms. Then I registered where I lived after college.

I am very familiar with the voter registration process. So if I didn’t work somewhere that keeps me up to date on current events, I might show up on election day to register with my same old documents, only to find out they aren’t good enough anymore.

First of all, this will very much back up polls, creating lines to vote. Maybe we won’t see it as much in rural Iowa, but it will happen.

Secondly, poll workers will have to take on the worst part of this, telling a U.S. citizen they can’t vote because Donald Trump said so.

We already struggle with recruiting and retaining poll workers. According to the National Conference of State Legislators, “inadequate pay and partisan balance requirements create a narrow field of qualified applicants, which is further diminished by recent harassment of poll workers. The resulting shortage of poll workers can cause unnecessary costs, security concerns and polling places to close.”

I’m actually all for voter ID laws as long as they are fair. Anyone should be able to obtain a free identification card for the purpose of voting. They should also be given access to free transportation to and from where they need to get their identification. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen.

The biggest issue is that there is no issue. It’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and the instances of them voting are extremely rare. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 already do a fantastic job of keeping non-citizens from voting.

According to data from the USCIS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, 0.04% of voter verifications are returned as non-citizens. Yet the Campaign Legal Center estimates more than 21 million Americans are unable to access the additional documents required to register under the SAVE Act.

An analysis of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Cases database found only 77 instances of non-citizens voting between 1999 and 2023, each of which was investigated by proper authorities.

And yet, this is what Trump has to say on the SAVE Act, posted on Truth Social, “It must be done immediately. It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION - GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY - ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL.”

We haven’t even talked about taking away mail-in voting. That will also save us from “so much” fraud. Brookings says cases of mail voting fraud account for 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, about four out of every 10 million.

People use mail-in voting for a myriad of reasons outside of military, illness or travel, including mental health struggles like agoraphobia, not wanting to miss work and simple convenience. In 2024, one-third of votes were cast by mail-in ballot, approximately 47 million votes.

Trump would tell you those 47 million voters and the 21 million Americans without access to their “papers” are less important than the handful of voter fraud cases.

Recent polls from CNN, the Washington Post, Fox News and NBC all show Democrats are significantly more likely to be passionate about voting in the 2026 midterms — in each poll, by a double-digit margin. CNN’s poll in January showed 66% of Democrat and Democratic-leaning independents said they were “extremely” motivated to vote, compared to just 50% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

Be real. This isn’t a SAVE America Act. This is a SAVE Republicans Act.