Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to withhold his signature from all bills until Congress passes a GOP-led voting bill that implements voter restrictions ahead of the November midterms.
“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,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The bill, called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, requires individuals to show citizenship documents to register to vote and strict forms of photo ID to cast a ballot. If passed, the legislation would also administer criminal penalties for election officials who register anyone lacking the required documents.
As my colleague Ari Berman wrote in February, the bill would potentially block tens of millions of Americans from voting. Nine percent of American citizens, or approximately 21 million people, don’t have ready access to citizenship documents. The bill may impact millions of US citizens in other ways: tens of millions of women who took their partner’s last name, for example, may not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name could find it more difficult to register.
For people who might not be in the US and don’t understand why this is a bad idea in the US and proportionately hurts poor people, proof of citizenship is usually a passport. A passport costs $130. You need supporting documents like your birth certificate, SSN, and a drivers license/state ID to get it. For your first passport you usually have to make an appointment to go somewhere authorized like a library, post office, or courthouse to apply, and then they send the application off and it can take weeks to months to get back, depending how backed up the processing agency is (and I’m sure there will be artificial delays during voting years if this passes). Also, they are passing laws limiting where you can go to apply, so now libraries and the post office are losing the ability to process passport applications, so people will have to go to the county courthouse, which could be a long drive from where they live, especially if you live in a rural area. For people who don’t drive, or only have one car that is shared with another working adult, or use public transportation that has a limited range (or just doesn’t exist in most of the US), or are disabled and can’t travel far, this can be a huge problem.
Also, all these places are only open during normal business hours, so you probably have to take time off work to go apply. Federal minimum wage is only $7.25/hr while the living wage is actually much higher (living wage for 1 adult living alone in a 1 bedroom apartment where I live was considered almost $23/hr in 2024), and if someone is making minimum wage or close to it they almost certainly aren’t getting paid time off, so now they have to come up with $130 for the fee and lose time off work.
Also not that it matters anymore but the Supreme Court already ruled it unconstitutional a long time ago as it’s a form of poll tax. Remember when Supreme Court decisions weren’t just “whatever Trump wants today” and actually were based on the constitution? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
It’s curious why they would want to implement this because although it affects poor people, it would probably also disproportionately affect poor Republicans.
Many voters in states like Mississippi/Arkansas do not have passports because they are both poor and have no intention to travel internationally so don’t bother with passports.
If MAGA thought that it would be a disadvantage to their voter base, they would not be pushing for it.
A passport card is only $30 (plus the $10 or so dollars for the required photo), but everything else in your post is spot on.
I always forget you can get just the card without the passport.
Even better, you can have the card expire off-cycle from the book. Since both last 10 years, if you renew one at the 5 year mark, it means you’ll always have an active document that can get you to Canada or Mexico even while the other is in the renewal cycle.
I recently learned this after renewing both at the same time missing my opportunity. I’ll renew the card early in 5 years or so to get this off-cycle expiry benefit.
I am not from the US, so I’m also mentally comparing with what happens in my country. Here, the place where you’re registered to vote has a list of all voter names and birth dates. You get there to vote, show a form of valid ID (driver’s license is a valid one), you can vote and you’re crossed off the list so you can’t vote twice. You don’t need to prove citizenship directly because if you don’t have the right to vote, you’re not on the list.
How does it work in the US? Citizenship aside, how do you prove that you are who you say you are and don’t e.g. wear a hat and fake moustache and vote 3 times? Honest question, I’m not judging, I’m genuinely trying to understand how things work today in the US.
That’s a very hard question to answer because each state runs elections differently. In my state we just get our ballot by mail and you send that in with your signature. If you don’t have an address there are polling places available, but it’s been so long I’m not certain how they check ID.
In my state you can apply to get your ballot by mail, but you have to do that for every election (which reminds me, I need to send my application in for the next election). If you don’t do that you can go in person to the voting location that is predetermined for you based on your address. They have a list of everyone who is registered as eligible to vote in person at that location. When you register to vote you get a voter ID card in the mail which is basically a little paper card with your name, county, and the location that you vote at. You just take your voter card with you to vote and they cross you off the list and give you your ballot to vote in person. If you already registered to vote by mail but you forgot to send your ballot in you can take your mail-in ballot to your in person location and they’ll tear it up and let you vote in person.
While I don’t think this should ever pass, I think a huge issue is we’re too close to the election to be changing how voting works. People could vote in the primaries and then not have the documents to vote in the actual election. Something like this would need to be phased in over time, just think about how long Real IDs took to implement.