What Would Nellis Say?
Save Our Democracy!
Save our democracy!
By Rick Stiller
Despite Trump’s baseless rants about stolen elections, our election system is the most secure in the world, as countless studies, investigations, and lawsuits have proved. Our current laws require anyone who wants to register to vote to prove that they are a citizen of our country. There are no exceptions.
Legislation to disenfranchise minorities and women by repealing the Suffrage and Voting Rights Acts of the last century that granted citizens, other than white men, the right to vote is one of the prominent goals of the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which was published more than a year before the last election as a roadmap for Trump’s administration.
If that cannot be accomplished by the Republican controlled House and Senate, then bills will be passed to make it as difficult as possible for those citizens to participate in deciding our future.
Trump and his MAGA bigots espouse dominance by white men and the subjugation of minorities, people of color, refugees, and anyone who does not subscribe to extreme and perverse versions of “Christianity”. They also believe that women should be forced to leave professional careers and return to the kitchen, where they belong.
Knowing that Trump’s antics and policies are destroying our democracy and impoverishing American families, Republicans are terrified that a Democratic blue wave will rupture their grip on power, decimate their legislative majorities, and strip them of protection or immunity from Congressional investigations and lawsuits in the courts.
Failing to repeal the laws that allow everyone to vote, the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE Act, in a blatant attempt to suppress participation in the voting process.
An amendment added before the vote would make these edicts and requirements take effect as soon as they become law, just before our November elections.
The bill reads:
This bill requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections.
Specifically, the bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in a federal election unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S. citizenship; and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process under which an applicant may submit other evidence to demonstrate U.S. citizenship.
Each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens using information supplied by specified sources.
Additionally, the bill requires states to remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters.
The bill allows for a private right of action against an election official who registers an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
The bill establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses, including registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
The Election Assistance Commission must, within 10 days, adopt and transmit guidance for implementing the bill's requirements to chief state election officials.
This legislation would require anyone who wants to register to vote to apply in person with “documentary proof of U.S. citizenship” – U.S. passport, birth certificate, or a Certificate of Naturalization, but it would also require married women to provide a marriage certificate and divorce decrees to prove their married name, and/or tax transcripts and joint bank accounts.
Making voting as difficult as possible for many who might not have copies of or access to these documents…minorities, adoptees, and naturalized citizens…is the point.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is expanding efforts to rescind the U.S. citizenship of naturalized individuals through a process known as denaturalization. This process targets individuals who allegedly obtained their citizenship through fraud, willful misrepresentation, or by concealing material facts, such as criminal records or prior deportation orders.
The Save Act also allows private citizens to sue and the federal government “to establish criminal penalties for certain offenses” against local election officials who fail to collect such “proof of U.S. citizenship”. Would you volunteer to work in a polling station, knowing that the federal government could file criminal charges against you?
If you have any doubt that this is a blatantly bigoted, chauvinistic, fascist bill, it also requires that all of the voter information collected by each state, including personal information such as party affiliation, home addresses, birth date, etc., be sent to a federal database controlled by…Krisi Noem, at the Department of Human Services, who is directing ICE and Border Patrol violence against refugees and the murder of American citizens.
This attack on our democracy was passed by the House and is being sent to the Senate.
Call your Senators and demand that this bill be defeated.
Stand up! Speak Out! Make a Difference! While We Still Can!