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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The SAVE Act’s core flaw is that it makes documentary proof of citizenship a mandatory precondition for registering to vote in federal elections. Section 4(b), as amended, states that a state “shall not accept and process” any registration unless the applicant presents “documentary proof of United States citizenship”. That sounds simple, but in practice it forces millions of eligible citizens - especially low‑income, elderly, rural, and young voters to obtain passports, certified birth certificates, or REAL ID documents they do not already possess. Those documents cost money and often require travel or time off work. When the government conditions the right to vote on purchasing documents, it edges toward the kind of wealth‑based barrier the Supreme Court struck down in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966).

The bill tightens the screws further by defining “documentary proof” in an unusually narrow way. Section 3(b) allows only a short list of documents: passports, REAL ID‑compliant IDs with citizenship markings, certified birth certificates with strict formatting requirements, or naturalization papers. Many citizens, especially those born in rural hospitals, older Americans, and people whose records were lost or never standardized, do not have these documents readily available. Replacement birth certificates typically cost money, and passports cost even more. Because the bill does not require states to provide free qualifying documents or waive underlying fees, the practical effect is: pay for documents or you cannot register.

Mail registration, intended by the NVRA to reduce barriers, becomes a two‑step obstacle course. Under new §6(e)(1), anyone who registers by mail must later appear in person to present documentary proof of citizenship before being added to the rolls, unless they bring the documents on Election Day itself. That requirement imposes transportation costs, lost wages, and logistical burdens that fall hardest on people with inflexible jobs, disabilities, or limited access to transportation. Courts have repeatedly found that such burdens disproportionately affect minority and low‑income voters, which is why similar proof‑of‑citizenship laws like Kansas’s were struck down for blocking tens of thousands of eligible citizens.

The bill’s “alternative process” for people who lack documents is no real safety valve. New §8(j)(2) requires applicants to sign an attestation under penalty of perjury and submit “other evidence,” which a state official must personally deem “sufficient” and then justify in a signed affidavit. With criminal penalties elsewhere in the bill for officials who mistakenly register someone without proper documentation, the rational response from election administrators will be to deny borderline cases. That kind of unguided discretion is exactly the sort of arbitrary, unequal treatment that courts have found constitutionally suspect under the Equal Protection Clause.

The bill also mandates aggressive database checks using DHS, SSA, and DMV records, and requires states to remove alleged noncitizens “at any time” upon receiving “verified information” of noncitizenship, without specifying notice or due‑process protections (new §§8(j)(3)–(5), 8(k)). Federal databases are notoriously error‑prone for naturalized citizens, and past cross‑check programs have produced high false‑positive rates. Wrongful purges are not hypothetical, they have repeatedly occurred in states using similar systems. When combined with the bill’s front‑end documentation barriers, these back‑end purge mechanisms create a system where eligible citizens can be blocked from registering and later removed without meaningful recourse.

Finally, Section 3 imposes a strict photo‑ID requirement for voting itself, demanding an ID that explicitly displays citizenship on its face and requiring absentee voters to include copies of that ID both when requesting and returning a ballot. Most existing state IDs do not display citizenship, meaning millions of voters would need to obtain new IDs, again requiring underlying documents that cost money. Absentee voters would also need access to printers or copiers, adding another cost layer. Unlike the Indiana law upheld in Crawford, this bill does not guarantee free IDs or free underlying documents, making the financial burden far more direct.

Taken together, these provisions create a cumulative barrier structure that forces many eligible citizens to spend money simply to register and vote. Under the 24th Amendment and Harper, the Constitution prohibits not only explicit poll taxes but also wealth‑based prerequisites that function as a tax in practice. By conditioning the franchise on the ability to purchase government documents, travel to government offices, and produce paid copies of identification, the SAVE Act risks crossing that constitutional line. Courts have already rejected similar laws for these very reasons, and the bill’s text, read plainly, recreates the same defects on a national scale.

It will likely pass, but I guarantee it will end up in litigation, and it will be very difficult to defend the de-facto unconstitutional poll tax that it imposes on voters.[/quote]

A + post.  Thanks to this poster.[/quote]

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