SAVE Act

The United States Senate has begun debating the SAVE America Act, a measure which if passed and signed into law, would become a barrier to voting for millions of Americans. Tell your Senators to stand with voters—oppose the SAVE America Act and vote “NO” on cloture. The Senate floor debate on this measure is expected to last until sometime next week at which point there will be a vote to end debate and move on to an effort to pass the bill. Senate rules require the higher threshold of 60 votes to end debate and falling short of this will kill the bill. While reports indicate there do not appear to be 60 votes at this point, it is vital that you let your Senators know you oppose the SAVE America Act, S. 1383.

To recap what is in the measure, among other things, it would make it much more difficult for many eligible voters to register to vote in federal elections by requiring documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) at the time of registration or re-registration. The SAVE America Act is essentially the same as the SAVE Act—a measure that APIAVote opposed last year—but with a few additional provisions, such as requiring a photo ID when going to the polls to vote. While a photo ID may not seem onerous, a recent study found that nearly 1 in 5 AAPI adult citizens do not have a current driver’s license. As a reminder, requiring DPOC means:

requiring all voters to PROVE their citizenship when registering or updating their voter registration by providing specific documentation, such as a passport – which more than 140 million do not possess – or birth certificate.
making voter registration drives nearly impossible to conduct due to the documentary requirements that must be presented.
undermining voting rights and disenfranchising tens of millions of American voters, as more than 21 million citizens lack these documents.
making it difficult for an estimated 69 million women to register since they may not be able to use their birth certificate to meet DPOC requirements if they changed their name after getting married.

The bottom line is that any form of the SAVE Act/DPOC would impose an unnecessary and exclusionary barrier for millions of eligible voters, and Congress must reject it in any form. As a community, we must fight against these attempts to undermine our access to the polls and voting rights. Senators need to hear that the AAPI community is opposed to this bill. I urge you to take a moment to contact your Senators and let them know you oppose the SAVE America Act and to vote “NO” on the cloture motion to end debate on the bill. Please pass this message along to your networks as well.

What is the SAVE Act?

The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on H.R. 22, known as the SAVE Act, a bill that poses a serious threat to voter access and participation—particularly for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities and other communities of color. Find more info here.

What Does Voter Suppression Look Like?

State voter suppression laws that restrict the availability of absentee/mail-in ballots, remove ballot drop boxes, limit early voting opportunities, create confusing voter ID requirements, purge registered voters from the rolls, and reduce polling places, are among the provisions that most harm the AAPI community’s ability to vote.

Many of these recent state laws have been directly aimed at the ways the AAPI community and others have overwhelmingly preferred to vote in recent elections. Examples include:

Arizona has made purging voters off absentee ballot mailing lists easier, made it more difficult to get and submit mail-in ballots.
Florida has also made purging voters off absentee ballot mailing lists easier, restricting who can provide assistance in returning a ballot, making registering to vote more difficult, reducing the availability of mail-in ballot drop boxes and reducing early voting opportunities.
Georgia is making the mail-in voting procedures more difficult including reducing the number of ballot drop boxes and making it illegal to provide refreshments to people stuck in long polling lines on election day.
Texas in 2021 installed one of the nation’s most restrictive election laws. The law’s ID requirements have made the absentee ballot process complicated and arduous. In the first election under the new law, there were reports of thousands of ballots getting rejected. Other restrictive provisions in the Texas law include limits on who can assist a voter in returning a ballot, reducing access to polling places, limited early voting opportunities and making the voter registration process more difficult.

Positive Voter Access Policies

State voter suppression laws can be most effectively addressed through federal legislation. Notably, in January 2022, Congress was very close to passing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which is a combination of the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. While unfortunately this bill was blocked, it would ultimately serve as the solution in addressing state voter suppression laws.

The Freedom to Vote Act would standardize voting election laws across the country and would significantly expand voting access, including reversing the effects of dozens of new state-level voting restrictions passed this year.

What the bill would require on voter access:

Election Day as a federal holiday.
Online, automatic, and same-day voter registration.
A minimum of 15 days of early voting, including during at least two weekends.
No-excuse mail voting with ample access to ballot drop boxes and online ballot tracking, in addition to streamlined election mail delivery by the US Postal Service.
States would need to accept a wide range of forms of non-photographic identification in places where ID is required to vote.
Counting eligible votes on provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct.
Restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people convicted of felonies.
Imposes stricter regulations on voter list maintenance that make it harder for states to remove eligible voters from the rolls.
More protections and resources to serve voters with disabilities and overseas/military voters.
Greater federal protections and oversight for voting in US territories.
Improving voter registration resources and outreach, in addition to reauthorizing and strengthening the US Election Assistance Commission.
The bill also includes the Right to Vote Act, which creates an affirmative right to vote in federal law.

On election administration and redistricting:

Prohibits partisan gerrymandering by requiring states to use certain criteria when drawing new congressional districts.
Requires states to use voter-verifiable paper ballots and conduct post-election audits.
Gives cybersecurity grants to states and directs the EAC to strengthen cybersecurity standards for voting equipment.
Prohibits local election officials from being fired or removed without cause.
Makes interfering with voter registration a federal crime, and imposes stricter penalties against harassment, threats, and intimidation of election workers.
Restates chain of custody requirements protecting the integrity of ballots and election materials, a provision meant to combat unofficial partisan “audits.”

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that have been struck down or weakened by the Supreme Court, and change the way federal courts handle election cases. The bill creates a new formula to restore the federal preclearance requirement mandating states with histories of discrimination to seek permission from the federal government before enacting new voting rules or redistricting plans.

Other key provisions:

Enshrines judicial precedent and legislative history to strengthen efforts to draw majority-minority districts under the parameters of the Voting Rights Act.
Takes aim at the federal courts by requiring judges to explain their reasoning in emergency rulings they take up on the so-called shadow docket, and tries to limit judges’ from relying solely on the proximity to the election in deciding emergency cases on election rules.
The Senate version of the law also includes the Election Worker and Polling Place Protection Act, which provides greater federal protections for election workers against harassment and intimidation.
The Senate version further tacks on the Native American Voting Rights Act, a bill that strengthens voting rights and voter protections for voters in Indian Country.