John,

Do you know where your birth certificate is? Millions of Americans don’t. Yet House Republicans are fast-tracking a sweeping voter restriction bill called the SAVE Act, which would require every American to provide a document like a passport or birth certificate to register or re-register to vote.

The consequences of this draconian bill? Twenty-one million American citizens could be blocked from registering to vote, simply because they don’t have ready access to the required documents.

Champions of democracy stood strong last year, and the SAVE Act failed to become law. But a new landscape in Washington means that members of Congress may not stand up to protect your freedom to vote. We can’t let the SAVE Act slip through the cracks.

We've already seen examples where state-level laws requiring voters to show a passport or birth certificate harm American citizens. When Arizona and Kansas enacted their own show-your-papers laws, tens of thousands of eligible voters were blocked from registering. And eligible citizens in New Hampshire were turned away from the polls just this month when a similar law went into effect. These laws especially hurt married women who change their names, younger voters, and voters of color.

Only U.S. citizens vote in federal elections, and exceptions are vanishingly rare. State and federal laws already prohibit noncitizens from voting in state or federal elections. To register to vote, you must swear you’re a citizen under penalty of criminal prosecution. Those who violate the law face prison time and deportation.

In short, the SAVE Act is a solution in search of a problem. We must not lose sight of this bill in Congress. A so-called solution that could disenfranchise more than 21 million eligible Americans needs to be stopped before it has any chance of becoming law.

Thank you,
The Brennan Center for Justice