Moderate Democrats Bolt From New Voter Fraud Bill

WASHINGTON — Moderate Democrats who backed a GOP proposal to impose strict voter ID requirements last year appear ready to abandon a new Republican-backed effort to crack down on imaginary voter fraud.

The old bill, dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, would require voters to prove their citizenship when they register to vote. The new bill, called the SAVE America Act, would require Americans to prove their citizenship when they register and to show photo identification when they actually vote on Election Day.

“This is voter ID at the ballot box. It’s totally different than registration,” centrist Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who backed last year’s proposal, told HuffPost. “They’re totally different policies.”

Progressive groups like Indivisible have urged voters to pressure Golden and the other Democrats who voted for the first SAVE Act – Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Henry Cuellar (Texas) and Ed Case (Hawaii) – to vote against it if Republicans tried to move any new versions of the legislation.

Both pieces of legislation address the phantom threat of noncitizens voting in federal elections — something that’s already illegal and rarely happens. Nevertheless, voters overwhelmingly like the idea of requiring ID to vote, and some Democrats are willing to go along with it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called the new bill “identical” to the original SAVE Act, just with voters showing ID twice, but the new bill would also require states to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security so it can purge noncitizens. Both bills would make it more complicated for people to vote by mail.

And to help voters comply with a provision requiring a copy of their ID when they submit mail ballots, the new bill would require states to set up photocopiers or other imaging devices for free use at various government buildings, including courthouses, libraries, and police stations.

Gluesenkamp-Perez thought the photocopier provision illustrated how the new bill’s paperwork requirements are overly onerous.

“Call me a perfectionist but if your legislation requires government to provide free photocopy services, you have not written a good piece of legislation,” she said Wednesday on social media.

Cuellar told HuffPost he’s “still looking at it.” A spokesperson for Case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Even if the bill passes the House on Wednesday, there’s little chance it will pass the Senate, where it would need all Republicans and at least seven Democrats to go along. Already, one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has said she’s a no.

“Not only does the U.S. Constitution clearly provide states the authority to regulate the ‘times, places, and manner’ of holding federal elections, but one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska,” Murkowski said Tuesday on social media.

In response to a question from HuffPost, Johnson said he wasn’t promoting the legislation to shake voters’ confidence in the upcoming midterm elections, in which Republicans are widely expected to perform poorly.

“I’m not saying that you can’t agree to the veracity yet from an election,” Johnson said. “I’m saying we have an obligation, we have a responsibility and a duty to do everything within our power — I mean the Congress and all of us as citizens — everything within our power to ensure that that is free and fair and safe and legal in every way possible.”