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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argues that the voter ID requirements Republicans are trying to pass amount to “Jim Crow 2.0.”
He’s wrong for numerous reasons, none less than that Democrats argued in 2021 and 2022 that Jim Crow 2.0 was already in effect, and nothing short of federalizing elections could save democracy. So, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act is actually Jim Crow 3.0.
The contention that voter ID laws are autocratic remains unconvincing. The SAVE Act requires voters to show a valid identification: a Real ID driver’s license, which all states now offer; a passport; a birth certificate; a military ID; or any other document proving citizenship. It also asks states to allow voters who don’t possess any of that documentation to sign affidavits and provide other evidence of citizenship before registering.
Democrats call these expectations a “poll tax.” By the time we’re done, anything short of sending a state official to your front door with a ballot and then picking it up when you’re done is going to be called fascism by the Left.
Likening an ID mandate to Jim Crow, most famously enacted by Southern Democrats who segregated society to undermine black economic and political equality, is historically and morally illiterate or just mendacious. Which is why the Democrats I’ve watched debating the issue diligently avoid explaining exactly how the SAVE Act would functionally reinstitute Jim Crow. Doing so would mean admitting that, in principle, it entails showing state identification, widely supported by every demographic in the country.
Let’s remember that voting in the United States has never been easier — even with ID requirements. Voting here is less restrictive than virtually any democratic nation in the world, most of which require photo ID. Not only is it far easier to vote than to obtain a firearm, a right explicitly laid out in the Constitution, but also to attend a Democratic politician’s campaign rally, or open a bank account, or get your paycheck, or get on a plane.
In every state, you can have a ballot mailed to your home — the same home you could not legally buy or rent without an ID. In too many states, officials will mail a ballot to your address even if you didn’t ask for one. And the ballots you receive are so user-friendly that an elementary school-aged child could probably fill them out. And for all we know, they do.
In most states, a person can get a ballot in a slew of languages. They can send them back at their leisure, even weeks before Election Day. Some states will even count your ballots if they receive them after Election Day.
Because of the ease with which we vote, the Left is compelled to refresh its hysteria with new fictions. The newest contention made by the League of Women Voters and others is that “69 million women will be disenfranchised” by the SAVE Act. As best as I can tell, this is allegedly due to the names of married women’s IDs not matching their maiden names on birth certificates. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told CNN that the bill might even violate the 19th Amendment.
How many married women don’t have any identification other than a birth certificate? Few, one imagines. But the few for whom this is the case had better get busy figuring out a way to get an ID. If you can’t complete some of the most minimal and rudimentary societal tasks, you probably shouldn’t be voting anyway.
If Democrats truly believe their rhetoric on voter ID, and I highly doubt it, it would mean they don’t believe minorities and women are as smart or as capable as other people.
There’s no evidence that ID laws “disenfranchise” or “suppress” millions of voters. Thirty-six states basically have the SAVE Act already. Are Democrats contending that married women have lost their right to vote in New Hampshire or Arizona?
You remember the panic over Georgia’s voting reforms in 2021, when Major League Baseball moved the All-Star Game from Atlanta, a city with one of the largest black populations, and moved it to Denver, one with a significantly smaller one. In the 2022 elections, early voting in Georgia increased by 160%. The state’s turnout for the presidential election in 2020 was 67.06%. In 2024, it was 72.9%. Now, an increase in overall doesn’t conclusively prove that no Georgian was inconvenienced by having to obtain ID, only that claims of suppression are fiction.
If Democrats have legitimate problems with the SAVE Act, they could address them. Call for the creation of systems that sync maiden names to married names. Make obtaining state-issued ID easier for poor people. It’s odd, to say the least, that the same people constantly lecturing us about how sacred democracy is fight hardest to ensure elections don’t have basic security.
Now, I’m skeptical any elections have ever been turned by noncitizens illegally casting votes, though illegal immigrants certainly impact census counts and congressional districts. I’m also certain President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, and voter ID laws aren’t going to give the GOP races it wasn’t going to win already.
Nevertheless, it is well within the norm of a functioning democratic state to ask citizens to exert the minimal effort of proving their identity before making generational decisions about the economy and war for the rest of us. Ensuring that citizens trust the outcomes of elections is vital in maintaining a functioning democratic system.
IT’S DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN AT NOTRE DAME
The question of whether Congress should federalize elections, something the GOP has traditionally opposed, is a legitimate one. Not that Democrats worry about such things. And if passing the SAVE Act means the destruction of the contemporary filibuster, which is the goal of Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) efforts to kill the “Zombie” variant, it’s not worth it, either. Simple majoritarian rule in the Senate, the endgame of a time-limited filibuster, would lead to more instability and further destroy federalism.
But none of those qualms make the histrionics of Democrats over voter ID any less preposterous.
