Examining Trump’s interest in the SAVE America Act : NPR

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

For months and even years, President Trump has complained that lawmakers in Congress do not take election security seriously. And this week, he refused to sign a bipartisan plan to bring down housing costs because of it. The standoff centers on a bill called the SAVE America Act. We’re going to bring in NPR voting correspondent Miles Parks right now. Miles, thanks for being with us.

MILES PARKS, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning, Scott.

SIMON: So the SAVE Act, as it’s called, is not new. President mentioned it in this year’s State of the Union in February, falsely accusing Democrats of fighting it because he said they wanted to cheat in elections.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat, and we’re going to stop it. We have to stop it, John.

SIMON: Miles, what would this bill actually do?

PARKS: So honestly, it’s a pretty major election overhaul, which is notable, considering, Scott, primaries are already underway, and we’re just a few months away from the general election – the midterms. The biggest change would be on the registration side of things. It would require people to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote, which might not sound like a big deal. Most Americans believe only citizens should vote in American elections, but having the right documentation to prove that citizenship is not a given. We’re talking about a passport or a birth certificate in most cases, and research has shown that roughly 1 in 10 Americans could potentially have trouble coming up with those documents if this bill were to go into effect.

SIMON: And is that why Republicans haven’t been able to pass the bill? It narrowly passed the House.

PARKS: It’s definitely part of it. Also, noncitizen voting has never been found to be a major issue in American elections. So Democrats have been universally opposed, and Republicans would need to blow up the Senate filibuster to overcome that opposition, which does not have broad support in that caucus. Honestly, part of the reason for that is that this legislation does not seem drafted to garner wide support.

SIMON: Now, fill that out a little bit for us.

PARKS: So experts I’ve talked to say if this bill was narrowly focused, specifically at requiring photo ID at polling places, for instance, that has wide support from voters. That could’ve potentially put some political pressure on, especially on some swing-state Democrats. But President Trump has pushed the maximalist version of this thing, at one point saying it should include restrictions to vote by mail, at one point saying it should include provisions regarding transgender athletes in sports. So not only are those controversial policies, but conservatives have also traditionally been opposed to any policies that would federalize election administration in the way that this bill would.

SIMON: But President Trump has said he thinks the country should nationalize voting. How widely held is that belief among Republicans?

PARKS: It is not widely held at all. Senator Mitch McConnell, for instance, has spent most of his career fighting against efforts to move the U.S. towards a more top-down election system. But the SAVE Act would do that. Derek Muller, an election law professor at Notre Dame, said earlier this year that if the SAVE Act were passed, it would be one of the most significant nationalizations of elections in American history.

SIMON: Why is President Trump continuing to push this if his own party isn’t behind him?

PARKS: That is the question that voting officials have been noodling on for much of the year, Scott. Whether it’s with this bill or the executive orders the president has tried to push through, which have mostly been blocked by the courts so far, voting officials see this as part of a bigger plan to cast doubt on upcoming elections should the president not like the results.

I was at an event this past week with Gabriel Sterling. He’s a Republican election official in Georgia that some listeners may remember from 2020, pushing back on President Trump’s election claims then. He said all signs are pointing to Republicans losing ground in Congress this year, and then Trump contesting the results.

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GABRIEL STERLING: The reality of this is, my Republicans, my team, are going to lose seats. But they’re going to say, if we’d won these lawsuits, if we’d passed the SAVE America Act, if we did all these things, we would’ve won. And that’s what they’re building towards. So it’s a win-win either way.

PARKS: Another person at this event was Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson. She’s a Democrat who’s also running for governor there. She said she’s worried that all this noise about the rules and potential restrictions to voting will mean that some people just say, you know, man, this does not seem worth it this year.

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JOCELYN BENSON: So much of the work to undermine democracy is about creating this narrative that democracy can’t be trusted so that even if you lose in court, people have lost so much faith in the system that they give up on it and walk away, which we know, when it comes to undermining democracies writ large in the history, it’s when citizens lose faith in their democracy that democracies die.

PARKS: Benson told me that people need to reject that and still turn up to vote this November.

SIMON: NPR voting correspondent Miles Parks. Thanks so much.

PARKS: Thanks, Scott.

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