Dear Mainer: The SAVE Act and the politics of fear

Good morning! Many of you are longtime subscribers of my regular ‘Weekly Update’ emails who are receiving this email through Substack for the first time. First, let me thank you for signing up for my email updates. This email contains ‘Dear Mainer,’ a monthly letter I send to constituents, in which I provide a deeper “under the hood” look at my approach to politics, policymaking and representing you in Congress. If you don’t want to receive these monthly letters, you can find the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of this email. Don’t worry, you’ll still receive my normal weekly updates from Congress every week. Thanks again for reading! — Jared

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At its best, politics is about bringing people together — focusing our attention on a vision of a future we can all share, one that speaks to our mutual hopes, dreams and sense of belonging and community, and the collective work it will take to achieve it.

But fear can also be a powerful motivator in politics: Political actors “use fear to drive votes away from political opponents,” wrote Kirk Waldroff for the American Psychological Association in 2020. “This strategy may involve factual or misleading statements about the opposing candidate’s limitations or claims that an election victory for the opposition will lead to outright disaster.”

Unfortunately, it’s often easier to capitalize on fear than it is to build political power by bringing people together.

Several weeks ago, a piece of legislation called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or “SAVE Act,” passed the U.S. House of Representatives. I voted for it, just as I did in 2024. The bill seeks to strengthen existing federal law that prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and to clarify that noncitizens are also barred from voting in state and local elections.

But unlike last year, when the bill passed with little fanfare or notice, this year many organizations and leaders on the left were incensed. National groups like the ACLU and Indivisible activated their networks, spinning up fear that the SAVE Act will “disenfranchise” American citizens.

This is not true, as I’ll explain in this letter. But what I was most interested in, as I watched the swirl of controversy envelop this bill, was the fact that the legislation itself had not changed since last year. So why was the opposition so much fiercer this year?

Ensuring American elections are only for citizens is a proposition supported by 83% of Americans. It enjoys bipartisan support. But just like pro-worker, anti-free trade policies that were once welcomed for consideration by Democrats, this basic election integrity proposal has been sucked into the broader dynamic of resistance to anything that has support from Republicans, and specifically support from President Trump. Some are using misleading fear tactics about voter suppression because they think it will give them an upper hand in politics and elections.

Most of us have become pretty good at recognizing when the other side is trying to use fear to divide us. But we are most susceptible to misleading fear tactics when they come from inside our own house, especially when we allow ourselves to believe that “our side” wouldn’t do that to us. We owe it to ourselves to be on guard against these fear tactics no matter who they come from.

What’s in the SAVE Act?

The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights bestowed to citizens in our country, but there have been periods in our nation’s history when this right was not guaranteed to all. Changes to voter registration requirements deserve close scrutiny. So here’s how I examined the components of the SAVE Act. (You can read it yourself too, here.)

The bill has several provisions, but the central one is the creation of a requirement that citizens provide documentary proof of their citizenship when they register to vote (not, as some have suggested, when they turn up to vote on Election Day). There are several ways to demonstrate your citizenship under the bill. If you have a passport, that will work. If you don’t, you can use a valid ID and another document that proves citizenship. For most people, that’s a birth certificate.

Those who oppose the SAVE Act have argued that this requirement will “disenfranchise” people, for one of two reasons:

1. The first claim is that some will be disenfranchised because of difficulty obtaining documents that prove their citizenship.

2. The second claim, and the one that has gotten the most attention, is that those whose names have changed for any reason (including marriage or divorce) will be disenfranchised if there’s a discrepancy between their current name and the name on their documents proving citizenship, like their birth certificate.

These are reasonable concerns. So the bill contains two important provisions that ensure that in these extenuating circumstances, citizens will still be able to register to vote:

1. It requires states to allow citizens who for some reason lack documentary proof of citizenship to sign an affidavit, under threat of perjury, affirming they are a U.S. citizen. This ensures a lack of readily available documentation is no barrier to any citizen registering to vote. This is especially important in a state like Maine, where we have same-day voter registration.

2. It requires states to adopt rules and policies to ensure that eligible citizens with discrepancies in their documentation can still register to vote — for example, a woman whose name has changed after a marriage or divorce but who has not yet updated her documents to reflect her new name. Life changes should never affect someone’s eligibility to vote, so the SAVE Act ensures they will not.

It is important that these extenuating circumstances are addressed, and I’m glad the bill addresses them. But it’s also important to recognize that for most Mainers, the new requirement will be easy to meet. We know that because most Mainers already meet them in other interactions with the government.

Experience shows the SAVE Act’s citizenship requirements are easy to meet, and Mainers are already meeting them

Contrary to the impression SAVE Act opponents are giving people, requiring documentary proof of citizenship is nothing new in our country. The SAVE Act’s proof-of-citizenship provisions are squarely in line with current documentary practices throughout government processes.

We know from our everyday experience that Mainers do not struggle to provide this documentary proof. For example: Citizens in Maine are required to provide documentary proof of their citizenship to get a driver’s license. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 93% of driving-age Mainers have obtained their license. That rate shows to me that obtaining a birth certificate or other document that proves citizenship is not some unachievable burden.

Perhaps most importantly: Maine already has a de facto requirement that citizens prove their citizenship before they register to vote for the first time.

While this is not an explicit requirement, it a requirement in practice: If you’re a citizen registering to vote for the first time in Maine, you must provide either a driver’s license number, a state ID number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number — all of which required documentary proof of citizenship to obtain. Maine has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country, indicating that the current requirements are not unreasonable.

Citizens are also required to provide documentary proof of their citizenship to enroll in Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, or to receive unemployment benefits. Citizens in Maine must show their birth certificate to enroll in public school or to claim their Social Security pension.

I am confident that under the SAVE Act, our state can both ensure that only citizens can cast ballots and that no one faces unnecessary barriers to registering to vote. Maine has one of the best voting cultures in the country, and I don’t see any reason why the SAVE Act would change that.