Republicans have launched their latest attack on the voting rights of U.S. citizens living abroad.
A new billĀ introducedĀ by three GOP House members, called theĀ Protecting Our Voter Eligibility (PROVE) Act, would force nonmilitary overseas voters to prove they maintain a ācurrent residenceā in the United States with a verifiable mailing address.
If they cannot, the bill declares, the individual shall not be treated as a resident of a state for purposes of voting in an election for federal office and instead would be āconsidered a resident of the District of Columbiaā for that election.
U.S. citizens living abroad would lose their ability to cast absentee ballots in the state they or their families call home.
Instead, their only option would be a symbolic federal-only ballot in Washington, D.C., where there is no voting representation in Congress. And because D.C. has consistently and overwhelmingly voted for Democratic presidential candidates, this provision would, in effect, neutralize the votes of millions of U.S. citizens abroad.
A coalition of voting rights groups, including the U.S. Vote Foundation, which helps Americans abroad navigate voting,Ā condemnedĀ the legislation as a radical disenfranchisement effort that would end long-standing protections under theĀ Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).
āThis is voter suppression,ā the coalition said in a joint statement. āItās already challenging to vote from abroad. This bill would push participation toward zero.ā
Voting advocates say the legislation, though framed as a matter of āresidency verification,ā is nothing more than a partisan attack on the overseas electorate. It singles out civilians abroad ā not active-duty military ā in a way that would disproportionately silence civilian voices that now make up theĀ majorityĀ of UOCAVA voters.
The Republican war on overseas voting continues, as the House GOP pushes the Protecting Our Voter Eligibility Act (PROVE Act) that forces non-military overseas citizens to maintain a ācurrent residenceā in the USA. If not, then they would be considered a resident of DC for election purposes.
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The GOPās push for the measure was driven by blatantly false claims.
Jim Saksa and Yunior Rivas at Democracy Docket:
The GOPās sweeping new anti-voting bill cleared the U.S. House Wednesday, setting up a high-stakes battle in the Senate.
The House voted 218-213 to pass theĀ SAVE America Act, which experts have said could disenfranchise millions by requiring voters to show documentary proof of citizenship at registration and to provide photo ID when they cast ballots.
All Republicans present voted in favor of the bill. While all but one Democrat voted against itĀ ā Rep.Ā Henry CuellarĀ of Texas.
The proposal also directs election officials to conduct monthly voter roll purges to remove ineligible voters, which must utilize the Department of Homeland Securityās (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for EntitlementsĀ program.Ā
The GOPās push for the measure was driven by blatantly false claims.Ā
āThey feel theyāve got to allow illegals to participate in elections so they can continue to win,ā Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox Wednesday. āWeāve got to stop that.ā
Republicans have argued for voter ID broadly, pointing out that there isnāt much to prevent a noncitizen from casting a ballot in a federal election ā besides the fact that itās a felony, easily caught, and would lead to deportation all for the chance to cast one out of hundreds of thousands of votes.Ā
There is, in fact, noĀ evidenceĀ of noncitizensĀ intentionallyĀ voting in significant numbers. Republican election officials have recently corroborated that with a series of lengthy reviews showing itās a virtually nonexistentĀ problem.Ā UtahĀ officials found just one noncitizen who was accidentally registered out of more than 2 million voters, whileĀ IdahoĀ administrators identified 36 ālikelyā noncitizens. In 2024,Ā GeorgiaĀ uncovered only 24 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters.Ā
The SAVE America Actās proof-of-citizenship requirements could potentially disenfranchiseĀ 21 millionĀ voters who lack ready access to a U.S. passport or a birth certificate to prove citizenship, according to a Brennan Center for Justice report.Ā
The Center for American ProgressĀ estimatesĀ the measures would add voter hurdles for up to 100 million Americans.
Republicans counted that states that have introduced tough voter ID laws in recent years havenāt seen a drop off in votes. But that could be because of a partisanĀ boomerang, firing up Democrats incensed by the new policies more than it keeps apathetic voters at home.Ā
In recent weeks, GOPĀ lawmakersĀ have echoed President Donald Trumpās frequentĀ demandsĀ for passing the bill, even as Trump hasĀ repeatedlyĀ said he wants to ātake overā elections whileĀ once againĀ spreadingĀ false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.Ā
Despite the GOPās sudden sense of SAVE Act urgency, passage seems unlikely in the Senate, where itās unlikely to clear the 60-vote threshold to break aĀ filibuster.Ā
[...]
Even without the filibuster, itās unclear whether Republicans have the votes in the Senate. Only 49 Republican Senators have come out in public support so far. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) posted her opposition on socialĀ mediaĀ Tuesday, saying, āone-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska.āĀ
Alternatively, someĀ RepublicansĀ want the SAVE America Act to hitch a ride on a must-pass bill, like the DHS appropriations bill for the current fiscal year or a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But that would make already fraught bipartisan negotiations that much more difficult.Ā
Ahead of the vote, the GOP adopted a āmanagerāsĀ amendmentā from House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) that clarified the effective date on the SAVE America Act would be the enactment date.Ā
His counterpart on House Administration, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) argued that if the law were enacted this year, it would be impossible for election officials to comply with it, given that primary elections have already begun in a number of states.
After Democrats noted that the billās original documentary proof of citizenship requirements to cast a ballot would block voters from simply using their driverās license, Republicans amended that element to allow any government-issued ID work. Registrants will still need to prove citizenship. In most states, that would require showing a U.S. passport or a driverās license along with a birth certificate. (Only fiveĀ statesĀ use āenhancedā identification cards that provide citizenship proof.)
Under theĀ proposal, voters submitting mail in ballots would need to send in a copy of their identification, except for the disabled and military service membersĀ stationedĀ abroad and their spouses ā other Americans living abroad, treated mostly the same as the military under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, would still need to send in ID copies.Ā
On Wednesday, the GOP-controlled House passed the voter disenfranchisement bill deceitfully known as the āSAVE America Actā 218-213 on almost all-party line vote, with Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) being the sole Democrat to vote yes.
The so-called SAVE America Act could have disastrous consequences for lots of Americans, especially married women. It would also make those utilizing VBM show identification.
This disaster of a bill is basically DOA in the Senate.
See Also:
The Guardian: House passes Save America Act, Trump-backed bill to impose new voting rules
"I am a little upset ā not a little, a lot upset ā by many of the statements in [the DOJ's] brief quoting historical sources out of context,
Jim Saksa at Democracy Docket:
Following oral arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee (RNC) Monday, the fate of mail-in ballot grace periods remains unclear as the U.S.Supreme Court justices split on the caseās central question: When is a vote actually made ā when a voter casts a ballot or when election officials receive it?Ā
Republicans want the court to ban states from accepting mail ballots that arrive after election day, something that 14 states allow. Doing so could make it much harder for voters to use mail voting.
The Courtās three liberals seemed ready to uphold Mississippiās law allowing postal votes sent by Election Day to count if they arrive up to five days later. Meanwhile, three conservatives ā Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas ā sounded eager to scrap them. But the remaining three didnāt tip their hands as much.Ā
Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh poked holes in some of the lawyerly logic they heard without revealing their sympathies, while Chief Justice John Roberts said nothing about the arguments themselves.Ā Ā
āIt is clear from todayās oral argument that the Court will be closely divided on this question, and the case could come out either way,ā said Rick Hasen, an election expert and law professor at University of California Los Angeles. āJustices Alito and Gorsuch, and to a lesser extent Justice Thomas, pushed Mississippiās [Solicitor General] with a variety of extreme hypotheticals not consistent with that state or any stateās law, to raise the specter of fraud with late arriving ballots.ā
Along with the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, the RNC challenged Mississippiās grace period for late-arriving ballots in 2024, arguing that the state law is preempted by the Election Day Statutes ā three laws Congress passed between 1845 and 1914 thatĀ setĀ āthe Tuesday next after the first Monday in November⦠as the day for the electionā for federal elections.Ā
The Supreme Court took up the case after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower decision dismissing the challenge and ruled that the wording of the federal statutes, as understood at the time, meant that ballots must be received by officials by Election Day, and thus grace periods for late arriving ballots are invalid.Ā
If the justices agree with the 5th Circuit, grace period laws for mail ballots in 13 other states (including Washington, D.C.) would be invalidated. That would put tens of millions of voters who rely on mail voting at risk of disenfranchisement. Nearly one in three Americans ā about 31%, or roughly 48 million voters ā cast their ballots by mail in the 2024 general election. Even with grace periods in place, more than 100,000 ballots were rejected for arriving too late that year.Ā
Another 17 states have grace periods specifically for overseas and military voters, and whether those laws would necessarily also need to be struck down was an issue the Court grappled with Monday.
Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart argued that Congress specified in the 1986 Uniformed And Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) that ballots mailed from Americans abroad should count so long as they arrive by the stateās deadline for receipt ā a date explicitly distinct from Election Day. Since that law, many states adopted specific UOCAVA ballot deadlines and Congress hasnāt acted to make clear that those laws violate its intent.Ā
The Watson v. RNC case was heard at SCOTUS on Monday. The Watson case focuses on the validity of grace periods for vote-by-mail ballots, especially those that arrive after election day but postmarked beforehand.
13 states + DC have grace period laws for all VBM ballots, while another 17 have them for overseas and military ballots.
If the GOP-controlled Supreme Court rules in favor of the RNC in this case, there will be major disaster and would cause millions of those who use VBM to be disenfranchised from voting.
See Also:
NCRM: Supreme Court Signals āLikelyā Defeat Ahead for Trump: Report
HuffPost: Supreme Court Appears Ready To Make Voting Even Harder
The Guardian: US supreme court appears poised to limit mail-in ballots ahead of midterms
GOP are doing the most to disenfranchise voters so much so that they want to invalidate votes from members of our military who cannot come home to vote?!? That is wild. Overseas voting is by no means a new thing at all.
The current law regarding this (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) was installed under Reagan. Absentee voting has been used since back in the Civil War. There has been no evidence of fraud in overseas voting, but regardless GOP jokers wanna play up conspiracy to try to cheat. Why do we let them even stay in this country when they keep pullin this shit.
Im my lil queer opinion if you register with gop you should be shipped to one of the piles on trash off California's coast and then you can have your lil toxic LARPing lifestyle out there.
Some interesting news about military voting costs in the SD Boards of Elections minutes
I was just browsing the draft minutes (pdf) for the SD State Board of Elections (BOE) meeting held on June 15, 2015. Since the BOE put its name on SB69 I decided to keep this board on my radar. I didnāt notice anything about ballot access or anything to do with SB 69. Most of the meeting seemed to revolve around HAVA funds (the Help America Vote Act of 2002). While that is a topic worthy of blogā¦
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