The SAVE Act
This letter to the editor, by Laurie Harmon, appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on March 5, 2026.
Can you readily locate a certified copy of your birth certificate? Does it exactly match your current legal name? Or, are you among the about 69 million American women who changed their names at marriage? Do you have a passport or are you, according to the Center for American Progress, among the roughly 165 million Americans who don’t?
Under the deceptively named SAVE Act, which has already passed the House and is awaiting a Senate vote, finding these paper proofs of your U.S. citizenship is just the first step to preserving your right to vote.
Even if you can get the proper papers (at a cost that’s an unconstitutional poll tax), the SAVE Act puts more obstacles between you and your voting booth.
Millions of Americans like you will need to register or re-register to vote and present papers in person to their municipal clerk’s office (mail in and online voter registration will end) and you’d better get started early, because that office will be sorely understaffed to handle the massive influx of paperwork.
Presenting paper proof of citizenship in person means millions of military personnel and their families, college students at home and abroad and elderly and disabled folks won’t be able to register to vote.
Even if you manage to register, under the SAVE Act every state is required to give its voting records to the Dept. of Homeland Security and to then frequently purge its voter rolls based on the faulty DHS database, meaning you’d have to go back to your municipal clerk’s office with all your paperwork to re-register to vote again.
America doesn’t need the SAVE Act; it’s already illegal for noncitizens to register and vote in our federal or state elections. Claims of widespread noncitizen voting are untrue. Even the data collected by The Heritage Foundation shows voting by noncitizens is virtually nonexistent and doesn’t affect election outcomes.
Trump and his Republican buddies are scared of losing the next elections and they want to stop us from voting in them. The SAVE Act is voter suppression, intending to block eligible Americans from voting.
Help ensure free and fair elections by calling and writing to your U.S. Senators, Tammy Baldwin (202-224-5653) and Ron Johnson (202- 224-5323) and telling them to vote against the SAVE Act.