Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to withhold his signature from all bills until Congress passes a GOP-led voting bill that implements voter restrictions ahead of the November midterms.
“I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The bill, called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, requires individuals to show citizenship documents to register to vote and strict forms of photo ID to cast a ballot. If passed, the legislation would also administer criminal penalties for election officials who register anyone lacking the required documents.
As my colleague Ari Berman wrote in February, the bill would potentially block tens of millions of Americans from voting. Nine percent of American citizens, or approximately 21 million people, don’t have ready access to citizenship documents. The bill may impact millions of US citizens in other ways: tens of millions of women who took their partner’s last name, for example, may not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name could find it more difficult to register.
For people who might not be in the US and don't understand why this is a bad idea in the US and proportionately hurts poor people, proof of citizenship is usually a passport. A passport costs $130. You need supporting documents like your birth certificate, SSN, and a drivers license/state ID to get it. For your first passport you usually have to make an appointment to go somewhere authorized like a library, post office, or courthouse to apply, and then they send the application off and it can take weeks to months to get back, depending how backed up the processing agency is (and I'm sure there will be artificial delays during voting years if this passes). Also, they are passing laws limiting where you can go to apply, so now libraries and the post office are losing the ability to process passport applications, so people will have to go to the county courthouse, which could be a long drive from where they live, especially if you live in a rural area. For people who don't drive, or only have one car that is shared with another working adult, or use public transportation that has a limited range (or just doesn't exist in most of the US), or are disabled and can't travel far, this can be a huge problem.
Also, all these places are only open during normal business hours, so you probably have to take time off work to go apply. Federal minimum wage is only $7.25/hr while the living wage is actually much higher (living wage for 1 adult living alone in a 1 bedroom apartment where I live was considered almost $23/hr in 2024), and if someone is making minimum wage or close to it they almost certainly aren't getting paid time off, so now they have to come up with $130 for the fee and lose time off work.
Every time mail in ballots is brought up I mention that Florida has a successful mail in ballot system and they’ve been Republican for well over two decades.
The SAVE act as currently written has a religious exemption, boy do I have a church for you: The Church of Unconsented Likeness. Take the pledge today! https://substack.com/@tover153/p-188528157
I've got a lot of worry about how much time he still has to get this passed, and about the viability of the midterms in general. I'm very worried he finds a way to suspend them, or actually gets this bill passed. (Or both)
He will get this passed, or do it with some sort of executive order. Most left leaning states will ignore these things as they constitutionally have no power. And trump will use that at a reason to invalidate those states's votes entirely. This will cause violent protests. Trump will bring in the military and declare marshal law. We will then have a dictatorship with trump and his sons as dictators for generations.
top 50 comments