Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, voted with three other Democrats to help the House Republicans pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act. In the statement on her website she says, “I do not support noncitizens voting in American elections — and that’s common sense to folks in Southwest Washington.”
I believe our congresswoman is the one lacking common sense. I want her to provide citations for the research that proves many noncitizens or ineligible voters are, in fact, voting in our elections. This act is fundamentally undemocratic. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “the SAVE Act threatens to block millions of Americans from voting while also imposing significant burdens on state and local election officials.”
Tens of millions of U.S. voters — married women who changed their last names, people without paper birth certificates or passports, voters living overseas, rural voters who will have to travel great distances to register — will be disenfranchised. Voter participation is a fundamental tenet of a democracy.
The congresswoman writes that “the SAVE Act stands no chance of passage in the Senate.” Glad the Senate is protecting our right to vote in the 3rd District, since Perez is actively working against it.
