Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise today in strong opposition to the SAVE Act.

This bill will make it more difficult to register to vote, and it will prevent millions of American citizens, including married women who change their name and rural Americans, from exercising their right to vote. It creates an enormous and expensive unfunded mandate on election offices, and for what?

Federal law already requires people to attest under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote. Noncitizens attempting to register to vote is exceedingly rare, and if they do, they face severe consequences, including fines, up to 5 years in prison, and deportation.

Mr. Speaker, more than 140 million Americans do not have a passport. Approximately 70 million women do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name. Millions and millions of rural voters would have to travel long distances to try to register to vote.

We don't have to guess what would happen if this bill were to pass. In 2011, Kansas had a proof-of-citizenship requirement.

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Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, in Kansas, more than 30,000 U.S. citizens, 12 percent of everyone seeking to register to vote, were barred from voting.

Other States have tried. In all of them, a significant number of citizens have been wrongly barred from voting. It is unacceptable. It is voter suppression. It is wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the SAVE Act.

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