Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has misread the SAVE America Act. In her Wall Street Journal op-ed laying out her opposition to the legislation, she repeatedly misstates what the bill requires, overlooks safeguards written directly into its text, and presents speculative worst-case scenarios as inevitable consequences. Her misbegotten criticism rests on several fundamental misreadings of the legislation and is just as wrong as the critics of “Seward’s Folly.”
Murkowski offers four straw man (and a straw woman) objections: Remote Alaskans would have no option but costly travel to register; women whose names have changed will have to wait months for certified records just to register; Alaskans using tribal IDs will have a hard time registering; and election workers will end up in court as personal defendants in lawsuits.
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Those objections would be devastating — if they were accurate. But Murkowski’s objections fall apart upon examination of the act’s actual text.
Take her main claim that rural Alaskans would have to spend thousands of dollars to travel to one of only six election offices merely to register to vote. The bill imposes no limitation on the number of sites at which an applicant can submit proof of citizenship. She ignores the National Voter Registration Act, under which every DMV office where Alaskans apply for a driver’s license must be designated as an election office where individuals can register, as are all state offices “that provide public assistance” and “State-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities.” Contrary to Murkowski’s claim, there are many more than six qualified offices in Alaska where individuals can register and submit proof of citizenship
The NVRA provides that a state can designate other offices as voter registration agencies, including “public libraries, public schools, offices of city and county clerks (including marriage license bureaus, fishing and hunting license bureaus, government revenue offices, unemployment compensation offices, and offices … that provide services to persons with disabilities).” Nothing in the SAVE America Act forbids Alaska from expanding voter registration options. Alaska could easily authorize additional state or local officials to receive citizenship documents in remote communities.
The NVRA permits states, with federal agreement, to designate federal offices as voter registration agencies. Does Murkowski doubt that the Trump administration would allow all federal offices in her state, such as local post offices, to become registration agencies? Or are state election officials unwilling to operate periodically from the remote locations she talks about? Murkowski goes too far when she presents a $1,000 flight to Nome or a $1,500 trip to Anchorage as the only options the act would permit. Alaskans who need a driver’s license, public assistance, or any other government service or benefit, such as mailing a letter, do not have to fly to Nome or Anchorage, and that should be the case when registering to vote.
The SAVE America Act can also complement Alaska’s automatic voter registration through the Alaska Permanent Fund. Around 90% of Alaskans apply for the PFD, payouts from oil and mineral revenues. Applicants are automatically registered to vote regardless of their citizenship status under a register-first, ask-questions-later policy.
The Alaska Division of Elections website even tells applicants, “When you fill out your PFD, you are automatically registered to vote … just because you received a Voter Identification Card, does not mean you are a U.S. Citizen.” The website instructs aliens to contact the division to cancel their registrations.
Illegal aliens on the voter rolls is not a theoretical problem; states have already used the federal SAVE database of the Department of Homeland Security to compare voter records against federal citizenship data.
As of June 22, DHS reported that 25 states had processed more than 68 million registration records through SAVE. Ten had completed reviews of their entire voter lists, and across all 25 states, DHS identified more than 28,000 noncitizen registrations. The SAVE America Act would not eliminate Alaska’s PFD registration option. It would replace the state’s backward register-first-ask-questions-later approach with a requirement to establish citizenship before placing someone on the voter rolls (and benefit the state by not relying on an “honor” system to prevent aliens from receiving money to which they are not entitled under the PFD).
Murkowski’s claim about married and divorced women not being able to register for months because their married name differs from their citizenship document is also just plain wrong.
The SAVE America Act requires every state to establish an alternative process for applicants who cannot produce one of the listed citizenship documents or who have a “name discrepancy in documentation.” They can submit an affidavit that “the name on the documentation is a previous name of the applicant.” Those with other issues can also submit an affidavit that they are citizens or submit other evidence of citizenship to be reviewed by state officials, who will make the final determination.
Murkowski’s discussion of tribal identification is also clearly mistaken. She claims a tribal ID card would need to contain a photo, expiration date, and place of birth to satisfy the bill’s requirements. No single provision imposes all three requirements. For registration, a tribal government photo ID may establish citizenship if it shows that the applicant was born in the U.S. That provision does not require an expiration date.
Alternatively, a tribal photo ID may be combined with another accepted citizenship document if the tribal ID does not list a place of birth. For voting, a tribal ID must have a photo and expiration date, but not the voter’s birthplace. Murkowski takes the birthplace requirement from the registration provisions and the expiration date requirement from the voting provisions, and misleadingly presents them as one rule. Additionally, to the extent needed, tribal governments can simply change their IDs to add any of these requirements, which should not be hard to do and will benefit tribal members to be able to use that ID for other purposes (such as the federal requirement of proving citizenship to get a job).
Finally, Murkowski overstates the threat of personal lawsuits against election workers. The bill adds violations of the documentary proof requirement to the NVRA’s existing enforcement provision. But that provision only authorizes declaratory or injunctive relief — court orders requiring compliance — not monetary damages from election workers. The NVRA also generally requires written notice to the state so the state can correct the problem before suit. Election officials might be named in litigation seeking compliance, but that is a far cry from exposing workers to personal liability.
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The senator may have a legitimate concern about how quickly states could implement the SAVE America Act’s requirements, but these possible implementation issues are nowhere near as apocalyptic or difficult to overcome as Murkowski suggests.
The debate should be about reality — the actual legislation before the Senate, not the straw man version described in Murkowski’s op-ed.
Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow, and Daniel Mares was a legal intern at Advancing American Freedom. Hans von Spakovsky is also a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission.