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Now that Nebraskans have been told they don’t know what they’re voting for, the state’s U.S. Senators, Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, are being asked to “save” us from the clutches of an evil so repellent that it shall not be named.
Actually, we can’t name it. Because it doesn’t exist.
From the Here-We-Go-Again Department comes something called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE Act. It checks in as yet another piece of nonsensical legislation that supposedly would solve a voting problem that doesn’t exist. This iteration insists non-citizens are not just voting in our elections, they are deciding them as well. Pro tip: Neither is a thing.
Fischer, Ricketts and their Senate cohorts are scheduled to debate and vote on the SAVE Act this week. The prediction markets have set the odds against passage, but the idea that Congress is even debating whether the federal government should dictate voting requirements should give every American pause.
The act would require anyone registering to vote to produce either an original birth certificate, a passport or naturalization certificate. Research from a number of studies indicates that over 21 million Americans of voting age would not be able to get their hands on any of the three. That’s a dangerous potential disenfranchisement, given that 153 million people voted in the 2024 general election.
Two related acts would require an ID to vote, something Nebraskans and voters in 35 other states already do, which, if you’re keeping constitutional score at home, is where the purview should be: In the states, not the federal government. But we already knew that. Now we need our elected representatives to proceed as if they did, too.
Mathematics and linguistics are both involved. For example, the Bipartisan Policy Institute found only 77 instances of non-citizens voting in the nearly quarter of a century from 1999 to 2023. If you’re trying to describe such a numerical occurrence, learn how to spell infinitesimal.
If you think I’m pumping air up your knickers, there is more. Check out the non-partisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, which advises election officials. While investigating claims of bogus ballots slipping by, they found the results of any query usually reduces the number in question, often from the aforementioned infinitesimal to vanishingly small or, if I may, submicroscopic.
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All of which might compel a Cornhusker constituent to ask a reasonable question of Fischer and Ricketts or their fellow Nebraskans in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Flood, Don Bacon and Adrian Smith, who have already said yes to the SAVE Act. Why? What problem does it solve? What does it “save?”
Non-citizen voting is already both a hen’s teeth rarity and illegal. States, in whom the Constitution gave the power to conduct elections, use a series of safeguards to check those registrants who swear under oath that they are citizens against databases such as those from the Electronic Registration Information Center.
Anyone lying about their citizenship to vote is guilty of fraud, the consequences of which can be jail time or deportation. In Nebraska, it’s a Class IV felony, which can net a fraudster a couple years in prison or fines up to $10,000 or both.
All of which leads one to wonder why Congress would co-sign an idea they know would disenfranchise voters. Unless that is the point, which is indeed an ugly reality.
If it truly wants to “save” something, Congress should find ways to increase — not decrease — voter registration and, unlike the president, quit playing cheerleader for states hell bent on winning elections through gerrymandering and redistricting rather than better ideas.
If it truly wants to “save” something, Congress should address the debilitating policies that are hamstringing economic progress, hiking prices at the grocery store and flattening the job market.
If it truly wants to “save” something, Congress should tackle comprehensive immigration reform rather than watch as cities are pummeled into chaos and occasional death, federal detention centers teem, and the economy is taking a further hit from a lack of workers.
The SAVE Act retills ground that previously bore no harvest. The notion that our elections are suspect because non-citizens are voting is based on no evidence and a maelstrom of misinformation currently in residence online … with an apparent sublet on Capitol Hill.
Here’s to Senators Fischer and Ricketts seeing the SAVE Act for what it is: an unnecessary law designed to take the vote away from millions while solving a problem that does not exist.
Then they should vote no — for a real save.
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