Landry argues 'save us not' on federal voter eligibility act | Opinion

You may have heard a lot over the last week or so concerning the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act – or the SAVE Act – and the context surrounding it. According to analysis from media outlets, the SAVE Act would give the federal government more power over states to run their given elections than it currently has.

According to The Wall Street Journal: “..the SAVE America Act would require new applicants to provide documentary evidence of citizenship at the time of registration.

Acceptable documentation would include a U.S. passport, certain military identification cards, or a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license that specifically indicates citizenship.

Applicants without those forms of ID could submit a birth certificate that meets strict criteria, including a state seal and authorized signature.

For voters who are already registered, the legislation would also require states to take “affirmative steps” to identify and remove noncitizens from voter rolls.

States would be directed to submit voter registration data to the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, database and to use Social Security Administration records for verification.

Federal agencies would be required to respond to verification requests within 24 hours and without charging a fee.

Beginning in 2027, the bill would impose a federal photo identification requirement for voting.

In-person voters would have to present a valid government-issued photo ID.

Mail voters would need to include a copy of identification or provide the last four digits of their Social Security number along with an affidavit…” It would also limit the ability to vote by mail.

Quoting PBS, the bill “requires mail-in applicants to provide proof of citizenship…” when registering to vote by mail. Such a step is in addition to what is already required of mail-in ballots.

So, there is a need to ask a question. What problem is addressed in this bill?

Or to put it another way, why is this happening? Well, now, we have come to our $64,000 question.

The answer quite simply is transparent: it is because of politics.

President Donald Trump still seethes that he fairly and honestly lost the 2020 presidential election. He will never admit it.

Instead, the president continually chooses the path of division. While on this path, he essentially threw a giant-sized hammer at the foundation of federalism to say states can no longer run elections as they see fit.

Much of this traces back to his grievances over the 2020 election and the narrative he helped shape.

Aside from that, myths must be broken.

There are many myths Congressman Chip Roy – author of the bill and a candidate for Texas Attorney General – and the president repeat.

One is this notion that noncitizens register to and vote in our elections in droves. This is patently false.

There are so many sources to cite with this but one in particular is the Trump Administration itself. It found roughly 10,000 noncitizens registered to vote out of 49.5 million registered voters.

Those numbers were verified by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to The New York Times.

Moreover, The CATO Institute – a conservative think-tank – used state level data to debunk the myth of droves of noncitizens voting in our elections.

The study evaluated that very claim in Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, and Utah – states President Trump won in at least two of three elections – and found them overwhelming false.

To amplify this point, The CATO Institute’s final thoughts were “…that many politicians and public interest groups… may not actually care that much about election security.

The constant talk of noncitizen voting is more likely about scoring political points and bolstering fund-raising...” The Center for Election Innovation and Research investigated many of those states and found the same thing as The CATO Institute. It also found that over 96 percent of voters in our elections are American citizens.

Those who are noncitizens tallied at .004 percent of voters.

Now that the claim noncitizens are voting in droves has been debunked; the next claim that needs to be addressed is voter fraud.

The reason this is relevant is – again – due to the president’s insistence that 2020 was rigged against him due to voter fraud.

That claim has never been verified and evidence to suggest it has never been brought forward.

That aside, voter fraud is incredibly rare in our elections.

The Heritage Foundation – another conservative think-tank – has an interactive election fraud database that holds records of such cases that have proven criminal convictions or guilty pleas of this crime.

Since 2005, Texas has had a whopping 113 proven criminal convictions or guilty pleas of voter fraud. While that seems like a large number on instances on the surface, the number is incredibly miniscule when it is contrasted with the number of ballots cast in our state since 2005.

Voting irregularities happen in nearly every election and state.

Yes, some chicanery of fraud takes place, but not on large scale, coordinated events the president and his supporters want you to believe.

While advocates of the SAVE Act may argue that those who oppose it do not want safe and secure elections, that is a bunch of malarkey.

Folks, we have secure elections in our country. Noncitizens cannot vote in our elections and if they do and if fraudulent behavior happens, they are isolated, rare, and prosecuted instances (there is also concern about what this new voting bill does for married women. I will address that another time).

Now, some may push back to my arguments to say the federal government has a history of getting involved in state-ran elections. Look at the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

While that factoid is true, they are not the same thing. The Voting Rights Act addressed concerns of people across the country whose right to vote was curbed due to their race, creed, and/or color.

All of the Jim Crow laws that were supplanted in states to suppress the vote of African-Americans needed to be addressed.

Voting, after all, is a civil right, and the government has an obligation of maintaining equality in the ballot box. The SAVE Act, however, does nothing of the sort.

The SAVE Act is for politics and politics alone, and America does not need it.

Drew Landry is an assistant professor of government at South Plains College. His views do not necessarily represent those of SPC.