Contact senators and urge a ‘No’ vote on SAVE act

Editor:

As you may have noticed, last Friday President Trump re-endorsed Representative Jeff Hurd as a MAGA supporter after recently withdrawing his support of him. Why, might you ask?

We think there are two primary reasons. First, Trump realized that without his endorsement, many MAGA voters would likely sit out this fall’s re-election attempt by our congressman and Trump would be more likely to lose his razor-thin Republican majority in the House of Representatives. 

Second, Hurd voted yes on the SAVE America Act, which Trump is desperately trying to pass, to the point of saying he will sign no other legislation until it is passed and that it is “one of the most important and consequential pieces of legislation in the history of Congress and America itself.”  

Here's what this bill actually does: 

• Blocks married women who changed their names from voting unless they provide a birth certificate and marriage license (that's eight in 10 married women);
• Eliminates online voter registration in 42 states, forcing everyone to register in person; 
• Requires a passport or original birth certificate to register—documents that 21 million Americans don't have readily available;
• Threatens volunteer and other election workers with criminal charges if they make mistakes; and
• Creates a national database of voters' personal information controlled by Trump.

The data is damning: 

• 150 million Americans don't have a passport;
• When Kansas tried a similar law, it blocked 31,000 eligible citizens from voting—12% of all first-time registrants;
• This bill would especially impact the 60 million rural Americans who rely on online and mail-in registration.

And here's the cruel irony: Noncitizen voting is already illegal and virtually nonexistent. Trump's own Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity was disbanded because they couldn't find evidence of widespread fraud. The right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, found no more than 77 verified cases of voter fraud in the U.S. in the past 23 years.

The SAVE America Act is now before the U.S. Senate. Please contact our senators and support their “No” votes. Also, please vote in November and remember that Rep. Hurd supports the SAVE America Act, which would prevent many legal voters from voting and supports President Trump over 90% of the time.

Jim Starr, on behalf of the Gunnison County Democratic Party Issues Committee