Cline backs ridiculous “SAVE America Act”

With the support of Congressman Cline and every other Republican, the House of Representatives voted Wednesday for the “SAVE America Act.” It now goes to the Senate, where it is likely to be filibustered by Democrats.

While supposedly designed to prevent non-citizens from voting, it would in fact make voting difficult or impossible for huge numbers of eligible American citizens.

The SAVE America Act is essentially the same as the SAVE Act that Cline and other Republicans tried to push through in 2024. It would require people registering to vote to prove they are American citizens.

Virginia Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan explained her opposition to that bill:

McClellan noted that the only methods to prove citizenship under the SAVE Act “just happen to be the ones that cost money.”

“You won’t be able to use your state driver’s license,” she said, adding that the easiest option “you could use is a passport. It costs money. A lot of Americans don’t have passports.”

McClellan further noted that it can be difficult for some people to obtain their birth certificates, which can be necessary to prove citizenship, and those who have changed their names — for marriage or other reasons — often struggle to “reconcile that in order to prove their citizenship.”

McClellan said the issue is personal, invoking her family’s history with the poll tax.

“Look, I took my oath of office on the Bible in which my father kept his poll tax receipt,” she said. “I am not voting for a modern poll tax just so that they can say they’ve done something to keep noncitizen voters from doing something that is already illegal, punishable by up to five years in federal prison, and that there’s very little evidence is a widespread problem.”

This bill is based on the ridiculous premise that hordes of undocumented immigrants are illegally voting in US elections. For obvious reasons, undocumented people try to keep as low a profile as possible when it comes to the government. How many does Cline think are willing to risk imprisonment or deportation to register and vote?

The Brennan Center for Justice explains:

Imagine you’re an undocumented person living in the United States. You’ve come to this country seeking a better life for you and your family. Or maybe your parents brought you here seeking the same when you were a child. You spend your life living in very real fear that you might be noticed by the government and be deported — perhaps to a country you’ve never known. There’s an election coming up, the outcome of which will surely impact your life. But you know you can’t vote because you’re not a citizen. Would you risk everything — your freedom, your life in the United States, your ability to be near your family — just to cast a single ballot?

Of course you wouldn’t. It’s a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. It’s also a crime under every state’s laws. In fact, under federal law, you could face up to five years in prison simply for registering to vote. It’s also a deportable offense for noncitizens to register or vote. And sure, people make bad decisions and commit crimes all the time. But this one is different: by committing the crime, you create a government record of your having committed it. In fact, it’s the creation of the government record — the registration form or the ballot cast — that is the crime. So, you’ve not only exposed yourself to prison time and deportation, you’ve put yourself on the government’s radar, and you’ve handed the government the evidence it needs to put you in prison or deport you. All so you could cast one vote. Who would do such a thing?

The answer is: just about no one. Every legitimate study ever done on the question shows that voting by noncitizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare. That includes the Brennan Center’s own study of 42 jurisdictions in the 2016 general election. We found that election officials in those places, who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes, referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, even suspected — not proven — noncitizen votes accounted for just 0.0001 percent of the votes cast.

The SAVE America Act is a “solution” to a non-existent problem. It’s performative nonsense that– in the name of “election security”– would deprive tens of millions of Americans of their democratic rights.