After months of looming doom, the SAVE Act passed the House of Representatives with a 220-208 majority in the House of Representatives. Hopefully, it will not pass in the Republican-run Senate, because it will still need a vote of 60, requiring eight Democrats to step on the other side of the aisle, even though four Democrats in the House did just that.
The SAVE Act stands for Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (I’m not sure who came up with that, but it sounds like something Marco Rubio had his bloody hands on).
Republicans claim that the SAVE Act will safeguard the American voting system from voter fraud or noncitizens voting, even though an unelected South African immigrant has been allowed to run amok in the White House. However, the reality is much less about protecting voters than politicians protecting themselves. Additionally, online registration to vote and mail-in ballots will cease to exist with the SAVE Act, even though over 50 million people have used one of these methods to register or vote in the past. The Republican party is seeking to make it more difficult for younger college-aged voters, women, the elderly, minorities, the disabled, deployed troops, those who live in rural areas, and the poor, who, in most cases, tend to lean left, to be able to vote.
To make matters worse, many of the Republican lawmakers making these dreadful decisions only have their seats because of gerrymandering in the first place.
In order to vote, a voter must have a REAL ID, which would require many who already have a current driver’s license to get another one, a Passport, or a birth certificate and an ID to prove their U.S. Citizenship. REAL IDs are issued by showing proof of a birth certificate. Women who have changed their name after marriage will be disproportionately affected because they will have to overcome the most hurdles in order to vote. Sure, she can just get a passport, but a new passport card is $65 and a new passport book is $165.
The SAVE Act would make it harder for millions of Americans to vote. I voted HELL NO. pic.twitter.com/BQctYGnfFY
— Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) April 10, 2025
As one social media user pointed out, this essentially amounts to a poll tax. According to the Brennan Institute of Justice, over 21 million Americans don’t readily have access to a birth certificate or a passport. Clearly, the Republican party does not value the vote of women, even the stupid ones who so eagerly stepped into a voting booth to check off their own demises.
Access to birth certificates is also not as easy as going to your drawer and pulling out a document.
While many states have mail and online options to get a birth certificate, they are often through third-party vendors and still can take weeks, while a passport can also take months. All methods, including in-person, generally require a fee, which presents a problem for those already on a stretched budget. A birth certificate is one of the most important pieces of paper one will ever need, but most people only use it a handful of times in their lives, and most of that is in our childhoods.
Fires, evictions, robberies, adoptions—hell, people lose things—but that doesn’t mean they should lose the right to vote just because Republicans have created this narrative of rampant voter fraud, when they are the ones who would rather sacrifice the vote of MILLIONS of citizens for the extremely rare instances of voter fraud.
I guess every vote counts, and it’s even better when they don’t count at all.
