Letter: Here a few more “ones” that are too many

I am delighted that Jim Arvin has finally found the text of the SAVE Act (H.R. 22), even if he seems to be struggling with how to read it. He claims that “one’s driver’s license is all that is needed to vote.” This is like saying all you need to drive a car is a key—ignoring the fact that you first have to spend months earning the privilege to hold that key.

According to Section 2(b) of the bill Mr. Arvin cited, a State “shall not accept and process an application to register” unless the applicant presents “documentary proof of United States citizenship.” If the registration isn’t processed because you didn’t have a passport or a birth certificate during the “gatekeeper” phase, you don’t get to show up at the polls with your driver’s license. You aren’t on the list. Period.

Look closely at Section 2(a)(b)(1). It only accepts a REAL ID if it “indicates the applicant is a citizen.” As I have pointed out, most states issue the exact same REAL ID to green card holders and citizens alike. Therefore, for the vast majority of Americans, their driver’s license—gold star or not—does not meet the bill’s requirement. They will be forced to produce a passport or a birth certificate.

Mr. Arvin dismisses the “paper trail” for women as a state issue, but Section 2(f)(j)(2)(B) explicitly mandates a federal process for “discrepancies” in documentation. If a woman’s birth certificate (required by this bill) says one name and her ID says another, this bill mandates the very bureaucratic maze Mr. Arvin claims doesn’t exist. You cannot mandate a birth certificate and then act surprised when name changes become a legal hurdle.

To suggest that “low-income, elderly, and rural Americans all have these documents and use them often” is the height of privilege. Millions of Americans—particularly those born at home in rural areas decades ago—do not have easy access to these documents. To Mr. Arvin, a birth certificate is a minor file in a cabinet; to a 90-year-old voter, it’s a document that might not even exist in a digitized format at a county clerk’s office.

Mr. Arvin claims I am “disingenuous” for saying this disenfranchises voters. What’s actually disingenuous is pretending that adding federal red tape to a secure process is “integrity.” It is already a federal felony for non-citizens to vote. We already that have security. What we don’t need is a law that treats legitimate American citizens like suspects in their own country.

Your first letter was titled “One illegal vote is too many.” How about writing letters like “One accusation in the Epstein files for a president is too many,” or “One death of an American at the hands of ICE is too many,” or “One woman dying because of a state’s abortion ban is too many,” or maybe “One child dying at the hands of gun violence is too many,” or “One child dying from a disease that we previously eradicated with vaccines is too many.”

Voter fraud makes up 0.0000845% of all votes cast over the past 25 years. Spare us the fake indignation and let’s focus on real problems.

Hoping facts don’t get in the way of a good story, 

Matthew Larson
Dubois