# Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act - End of Democracy or Its Savior? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [February 13, 2025, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/safeguard-american-voter-eligibility-save-act-end-of-democracy-or-its-savior/1014253 "2025-02-13T00:59:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 103
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2026, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/safeguard-american-voter-eligibility-save-act-end-of-democracy-or-its-savior/1014253/103 "2026-02-14T06:51:56Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Voter ID is always portrayed as something that puts the Ds at a disadvantage. Yes, because the fucking Republicans do this deliberately as a conscious voter-suppression tactic. Y’all are getting hung up on the amount of money. You are forgetting that as soon as Republicans force the camel’s nose of mandatory ID into the tent of voting, they start engaging in all sorts of shenanigans to ensure their side has an advantage. Here’s a story from a couple of years ago where state Republicans target the means of identification typically used by students. > **[Republican-controlled states target college students’ voting power ahead of...](https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/02/politics/gop-targets-student-voting)** > > Republican-controlled legislatures around the country have moved to erect new barriers to voting for high school and college students in what state lawmakers describe as an effort to clamp down on potential voter fraud. Critics call it a blatant... On the flip side, here’s a story from a year ago in which Republicans _expand_ identification to include hunting licenses and firearms permits. [https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/02/10/gop-bill-would-expand-automatic-voter-registration-to-gun-hunting-permits/](https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/02/10/gop-bill-would-expand-automatic-voter-registration-to-gun-hunting-permits/) They _don’t_ want students voting, but they _do_ want hunters and gun owners voting. Hmmm, I wonder what distinguishes these two groups. And there are lots and lots of these kinds of stories, showing how Republicans are using voter ID not as a means of insuring clean elections but in order to slant likely participation. Here’s something from the ACLU ten years ago noting that the Republicans have been closing DMV offices in a targeted fashion based on voter leanings. If you’re a Black voter in a Democratic district, you have to travel for an hour or more to get to an office. But if you’re in one of the GOP’s favored areas, you’ve got much easier access. > **[Alabama’s DMV Shutdown Has Everything to Do With Race | ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/alabamas-dmv-shutdown-has-everything-do-race)** So all this “it’s just an ID, how hard can it be” stuff is bullshit and ignores documented history. We _know_ the GOP will treat this as another tactic in the electoral toolbox, _because they already fucking do._ I live in a country which has compulsory voting. If you don’t vote, and you don’t have a _really_ good excuse (you were unexpectedly hospitalized, your employer sent you out of the country at the last minute and you didn’t have time to request an absentee ballot, etc), you get fined. But at the same time, the country makes it _really_ easy to vote. Polls are open all day on a Sunday. Absentee ballots are freely available. Public transportation is free. Everyone uses the same ID, which is freely issued. And so on. (Also, the compulsory aspect ends at age 75. The elderly are still able to vote, of course, but they’re not penalized for health or mobility issues.) If you’re going to support something like this SAVE Act, then you must _at a minimum_ provide the same kind of guarantees for equal — and I mean _equal_ — accessibility to the ballot box for all — and I mean _all_ — voters. _Any_ sort of discrepancy will be leveraged for advantage. This is also not new information. All of this has been well known for twenty years. How is it _still_ being hashed out as if this were some great mystery? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/safeguard-american-voter-eligibility-save-act-end-of-democracy-or-its-savior/1014253)._