The U.S. House passed legislation last week that would require the public to produce a passport or birth certificate in most cases to register to vote, less than a year out from November midterm elections.
The 218-213 vote split mostly along party lines, with one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, breaking with his party to support the measure. One Republican, North Carolina’s Greg Murphy, did not vote.
Republicans argued the bill, dubbed by House Republicans as the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” or the SAVE America Act, will prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, which is already illegal and rare.
The Senate is considering its own version of the bill.
The GOP’s championing of the bill follows President Donald Trump’s comments advocating to nationalize elections, a mid-decade campaign to redraw state congressional districts in Republicans’ favor and more than two dozen Department of Justice lawsuits demanding Democratic-led states turn over unredacted voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security.
The bill also includes a provision requiring each state to send an “official list of eligible voters for federal office” to Homeland Security to be run through the department’s database to identify any noncitizens.
The legislation has attracted sharp criticism from Democrats and voting rights advocates as a “show your papers” law that will disenfranchise the roughly 146 million Americans who do not have a passport.
They say it would also affect those without ready access to a birth certificate and married women whose last names do not match the name appearing on birth records.
If passed by both chambers and signed into law by Trump, the measure would take effect immediately.
“Republicans know that they cannot win on the merits, so rather than change their policies, they’re seeking to change the rules. John Lewis was not bludgeoned on a bridge in my hometown for the Republicans and Donald Trump to take these rules away from us,” said Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., invoking the late Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who was beaten in 1965 in Selma, Alabama, during a march for voting rights.
“This is a blatant power grab, as Democrats will not stand for it,” Sewell, whose district includes Selma, said on the floor ahead of the vote.
Sean Morales-Doyle, director of voting rights and elections at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the timing of the measure, if enacted, would cause “maximum chaos.”
“A change of this magnitude to our election system right before an election would be not only terrible in substance in that it would block Americans from voting, but would also be chaos-causing,” Morales-Doyle said.
“It would change the rules that govern our elections and government registration right when that is happening at the highest rate. … There’s always a huge increase in registration in the run-up to an election.”
But Republicans argue the legislation provides “safeguards” to ensure only U.S. citizens vote, as Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said on the floor ahead of the vote.
“House Republicans and President Trump want to protect the ballot box and ensure integrity in our elections across this great country,” Burchett said.
MGP votes no
Washington’s U.S. House delegation split along party lines in voting on the SAVE America Act, with the state’s two Republican representatives backing the bill and its eight Democrats opposed.
Notably, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, was a “no” vote, even though she backed a similar bill last year.
“All of us in Southwest Washington agree that only U.S. citizens should determine the outcome of U.S. elections, but this bill is more concerned with duct-taping together a government-run photocopying service than actually advancing the serious goal of ensuring free and fair elections,” she said in a statement.
“Vote-by-mail is the gold standard in election security, and the SAVE America Act would undermine our state’s longstanding elections process by forcing Washingtonians to jump through nonsensical bureaucratic hoops in order to mail in their ballot,” she added.
Gluesenkamp Perez is up for reelection this year and facing a challenge from state Senate Republican Leader John Braun, of Centralia.
