For our live debate at The Allen Theatre Wednesday in Annville, Pennsylvania, our pundits have weighed in on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Scroll the right column for commentary by Rich Corbett and Stephen Macaulay and scroll the left column for commentary by K.E. Bell and Joel Postman.
By Todd Lassa
Ahead of the Talking With, Not At series at The Allen Theatre in Annville, Pennsylvania Wednesday evening The Hustings has asked contributing pundits to weigh in on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
President Trump has been pushing for passage of the bill in order to influence the November 3 midterm elections for the Republican Party. He hopes it will shift enough races in urban and suburban areas sufficiently to preserve the GOP’s thin majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, and perhaps even gain a couple of seats.
The president’s rational behind the SAVE Act is that he believes Democrats have stolen elections by relying on ineligible voters, most particularly the 2020 presidential election he lost. To this day, his appointees, including federal judges, will not say “Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election” when pressed by Democratic senators in their confirmation hearings, but rather; “The electoral college certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.”
He has called on Republican legislators to redistrict their states and improve chances of GOP gains in the House this coming November, to very mixed results. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has presidential aspirations for 2028, led a redistricting drive in his state to essentially wipe out gains Texas Republicans made with their redistricting effort. On Tuesday, Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting measure by narrow, 51.5% to 48.5% margin according to USA Today, that will likely add five House seats to the Democratic side of the aisle.
Trump also says mail-in ballots are corruptible and wants to outlaw them.
Opponents, including never-Trump conservatives as well as liberals and the unaffiliated, see the SAVE Act as potential further erosion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which helped end Jim Crow.
Last May, the Trump Justice Department demanded that 48 states plus the District of Columbia hand over election-related records and data, including driver’s license numbers and partial, four-digit social security numbers. The federal government has since sued 30 states plus D.C. for not complying, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, though the result of DOJ’s demand may violate state and federal security and privacy laws.
In January, the FBI seized all the ballots cast in Fulton County, Georgia, during the 2020 election “based largely on allegations from conservative activists that have been repeatedly rejected by state and local officials, according to court filings” unsealed February 10, according to Politico.
It appears the president is still looking in Georgia for his 11,780 votes.
In late March, Trump issued an executive order to “strengthen election integrity by ordering citizenship verification for federal elections and modernizing and securing mail-in and absentee ballot procedures through the United States Postal Service.”
Last week, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to Wayne County, Michigan Clerk Cathy Garrett demanding all ballots submitted for the 2024 election, the Detroit News reports.
Michigan Democratic leaders released the letter last Sunday with the response by state Attorney General Dana Nessel, who vowed to fight against “any attempt to interfere in Michigan’s elections.” Nessel accused Trump of “weaponizing” the Justice Department to “sabotage our democratic process and turn it into his own personal agency to interfere in state elections.”
Fulton County is home to Atlanta and Wayne County is home to Detroit.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has demonstrated how Immigration and Customs Enforcement can take over such cities as Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Will the White House use ICE and other federal enforcement to check identification of voters in Democratic-leaning cities on November 3?
Email your comments on this issue to editors@thehustings.news.
Lassa is founding editor of The Hustings.