SAVE America Act: What to know about impacts to local elections | News | nbcrightnow.com

BENTON COUNTY, Wash.- As President Donald Trump urges passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act through the Senate, Democrats are holding out over concerns the bill would make it more difficult to cast a ballot in an election system they contend is already secure.

In pushing the SAVE America Act, the President seemed to accuse opponents of voter fraud. During his State of the Union address on Feb. 24, Trump raised issues about election integrity, expressing doubts about Democratic practices without providing any basis for his claims.

"They want to cheat,” Trump said. “They have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat."

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in American elections. Democrats contend the bill could prevent millions of eligible Americans from voting.

The

SAVE America Actwould require voters to present identifying documents that prove citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, along with a photo ID, when registering to vote or updating their registration details. Voters would need to bring photo ID to the polls, with a name that matches the accompanying document, to cast a ballot in a federal election.

“I think we can always look for ways to improve on a system,” Benton County Auditor Brenda Chilton said. “We should never rest on our laurels and assume that there isn’t a better way of doing things.”

That’s not to say Chilton shared any concern in particular: “Election administrators in Washington state continuously strive for reviewing those processes and determining whether additional measures need to be considered, or put in place, to prevent those situations.”

“Every election we usually have a handful of cases that are reviewed,” Chilton said, adding that over the past 15 years throughout Benton County’s now-130,000 registered voters, "None of them, except for one, was related to citizenship."

"Oftentimes, what we see is that people don't understand the process.” Chilton pointed to an individual signing another’s ballot as an example. “Those are the types of cases that we’re reviewing and then referring to the prosecuting attorney’s office.

The Center for American Progress estimated that nearly 2.8 million Washington residents and 146 million nationwide lack a passport. Additionally, 1.6 million women in Washington and 69 million nationwide might not have a birth certificate matching their legal surname–an essential caveat if pairing a birth certificate with photo ID to register and cast a ballot.

Washington's Director of Elections, Stuart Holmes, figured "turnout would be significantly decreased" due to confusion over required documentation.

“[Mandating documentation is] shifting the burden from the government down to the people, Holmes said. “Especially in this day and age, where people have very little time on their hands, it will likely have an impact on their willingness to participate in an election if they realize they’ve got to go down to get a copy of their ID, or ‘now I have to go down to the voting center.’”

As for the burden placed on local elections offices: "All of their systems would need to be upgraded as well to track and verify all of these citizenship pieces of documentation,” Holmes said. “Every day it seems you see another cybersecurity data breach of a government agency of some kind… the SAVE America Act is effective immediately, which creates a lot of cyber risks in order to maintain all of this documentation in a way [compliant] with the federal law and safeguarding all of the citizens’ information.

Congressman Dan Newhouse (R-WA) shared a statement detailing his support of the bill:

"Election law is a complicated and intricate issue. While the Constitution grants states the power to conduct elections, the federal government has a responsibility to safeguard the integrity of federal elections. Requiring identification and proof of citizenship to vote ensures that only American citizens are participating in our democratic process. I oppose calls to ‘nationalize’ our elections but support common-sense reforms to make our elections more secure."

Chilton assured the public, "Rest assured, whatever laws are passed, election administrators in Washington state are going to follow them."

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has said the Senate will take up the SAVE America Act "very soon", though Republicans do not have the 60 votes needed to break a Democratic filibuster.