5 Common Lies About The SAVE Act — And How To Refute Them

The Republican-led House is slated to hold another vote on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote.

As expected, the propaganda press and left-wing activists have resorted to spreading lies about the legislation to convince the American people that it should be opposed. But these lies are purposely designed to guilt Americans into sacrificing their right to free and fair elections. Here’s how to refute them.

‘Married Women Could Lose Voting Access’

So reads a headline from the AZ Mirror regarding the SAVE Act. Plenty of other outlets are spreading the same propaganda. It was echoed by Teen Vogue, which said the SAVE Act creates “unnecessary and discriminatory barriers” for married women and other groups by creating “excessive documentation requirements.” California Democrat Sen. Alex Padilla’s office peddled the talking point as well, claiming “the bill could restrict the right to vote for approximately 69 million married women whose legal names differ from their birth certificate.”

Cleta Mitchell, senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, previously told The Federalist, “When women change their names upon marriage (or divorce) there is a process for changing / updating [their] name from birth certificate or a prior marriage.” She noted how “Millions of women do it every day so they can operate their lives under their married names.”

[READ: Leftists’ Claims The SAVE Act Won’t Let Married Women Vote Are An Insult To Their Intelligence]

Texas Congressman Chip Roy — who introduced the SAVE Act — told The Federalist, “The left has manufactured fake news claiming that women—or anyone other than non-citizens—will somehow be prevented from voting. Virtually every married individual will have zero impact because they are already registered to vote, and their name is already documented.”

“For the tiny fraction of women … who have changed their name right before an election, the SAVE Act explicitly directs states to establish a process for individuals to register if there’s a discrepancy in their documents, such as due to a name change,” Roy said. “By providing a mechanism to enforce the law, the SAVE Act protects every American citizen’s right to vote, preventing their votes from being canceled out by non-citizens voting in federal elections.”

The SAVE Act Would Disproportionately Affect Nonwhite Voters

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement the SAVE Act would “disproportionately impact communities of color, low-income individuals, and other vulnerable populations to create a dangerous precedent.” Earlier this year, Stella Adams wrote in Ms. Magazine that the legislation would create “disproportionate barriers for historically disenfranchised communities,” noting how “[n]early 9 percent of voting-age Black Americans lack access to birth certificates and passports, compared to 5.5 percent of white Americans.” Countless left-wing organizations have also peddled similar claims while urging Congress to oppose the legislation.

But as Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, explained to The Federalist, such claims, specifically regarding African American voters, suggest “black Americans won’t be able to cope with a proof of citizenship requirement for voting.”

Spakovsky noted how “Federal immigration law … requires all employers to get documentation from new employees proving both their identity and citizenship, or if they are an alien, their identity and work permit.” Therefore, “any American citizen wanting to get a job — including black Americans — [already] have to provide documentation proving they are a U.S. citizen.”

In other words, the SAVE Act would apply requirements to voting that already exist for working in America.

Spakovsky also noted how claims the SAVE Act would disproportionately affect nonwhite voters reflect the same line of argument activists used in the past to claim “black Americans would not be able to vote due to [state voter ID requirements]” — a claim refuted by voter turnout data.

[READ NEXT: 5 Dems Who Voted For Election Security Reform Won’t Say If They’ll Support The SAVE Act Again]

Americans Don’t Have Easy Access To Citizenship Documents

Such a claim comes from outlets like NPR, which contends “millions of Americans don’t have easy access to proof-of-citizenship documents” and “obtaining these documents takes time and money.” The Brennan Center for Justice recently opposed the SAVE Act on similar grounds, claiming more than 20 million Americans “lack ready access” to proof of citizenship documents like a birth certificate or passport. The group also asserted last year that nearly 4 million Americans “don’t have these documents at all.”

As I previously wrote, “The Brennan Center apparently relied on the honor system when performing its survey” to get these numbers, “so it’s not clear that the respondents are even American citizens.” Nonetheless, the claim that potentially millions of American residents are unable to prove their own citizenship status underscores the need for the SAVE Act.

And, in reality, while the propaganda press and the left seem bent on suggesting Americans are not responsible enough to locate their own citizenship documents, the SAVE Act provides a laundry list of acceptable documentation, such as a REAL ID, a valid passport, a military card, a “valid government-issued photo identification card” showing the applicant’s place of birth, and a certified birth certificate, among other options.

Non-Citizen Voting Is Already Illegal

Democrats, the corrupt media, and leftist activists relentlessly claim that, since it’s already illegal for noncitizens to register to vote or vote in federal elections, the SAVE Act is unnecessary.

Drunk driving, shoplifting, and stealing a motor vehicle are all illegal — yet all still happen on a yearly, if not daily, basis.

Despite noncitizen voting being illegal — it still happens. All the SAVE Act would do is add teeth to a largely toothless federal law prohibiting noncitizens from voting. Under current law, prospective voters merely attest they are citizens on a federal registration form under penalty of perjury. It’s the honor system — and it’s a system that has allowed dozens of noncitizens to vote and register to vote.

Forty-one noncitizens cast a ballot in North Carolina in 2016. In 2019, 11,198 noncitizens were removed from Pennsylvania’s voter rolls, according to the Washington Times. And just this past general election cycle, a Chinese college student cast an illegal vote despite being a noncitizen. (His vote was ultimately counted since ballots are secret; once a vote is cast and tabulated, it is impossible to determine who cast the ballot.) Meanwhile, an October Georgia audit found 20 noncitizens registered to vote — nearly half of which cast ballots in past elections, according to the Atalanta Journal-Constitution. In September, Oregon’s secretary of state similarly found nine noncitizens who had voted in past elections after discovering “more than 300 noncitizens were erroneously registered to vote,” The Federalist’s Logan Washburn reported.

There Are Already Federal Checks On Citizenship

The Center for American Progress‘ Greta Bedekovics and Sydney Bryant claimed earlier this year that the SAVE Act is ultimately unnecessary because “there are already documentation requirements to be able to register to vote” under current federal law.

The piece notes how, under the federal Help America Vote Act [HAVA], “Americans must provide either the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number on a voter registration application in order to provide election officials with the necessary information to verify their identity and voting eligibility.”

Bedekovics and Bryant claim that the current federal law is a “relatively well-oiled system” and lament that the SAVE Act would “make every single American citizen put in the work, time, and resources to exercise their constitutional right to vote.” But what they fail to mention is that noncitizens can obtain both a driver’s license and social security, so neither one necessarily proves citizenship. In fact, prospective voters in California who lack both forms of identification can slip through HAVA and instead provide low-security proof of identity — not citizenship — like a gym membership or utility bill to register to vote.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2