Save us from The SAVE Act
April 19 is tomorrow — time again to protest.
The U.S. stock market is crashing and America’s economy, too. The self-inflicted destruction of our values and norms continues to dismantle our national security and that of our allies too, and toxic fallout spews everywhere.
It’s difficile to keep up with the headlines, I know.
So one story you might not yet have properly processed is the Republican’s passage of The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. The measure now moves to the Senate, where Democrats promise to block it.
And we pray.
The SAVE Act requires that voters show proof of U.S. citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — in person, or when registering to vote, or when updating their voter registration.
Supporters of The SAVE Act argue that the bill will prevent noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. Yet studies and state level audits have found that such cases are rare and only account for a tiny percentage of votes.
The SAVE Act would also end online voter registration, mail-in registration, and voter drives. That would be a problem for students who go to out-of-state college, those in the military, and people with jobs that make it difficult to find time to register in person.
Additionally, according to Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, which opposes the legislation, about 21.3 million American citizens don’t have these documents readily available.
Morales-Doyle adds that this number does not include the millions of other U.S. voters whose documents don’t match their current names, such as women who’ve recently been married — making a woman who took her husband’s name potentially ineligible to vote in future elections.
Yes, and sadly not surprisingly, this disparately impacts women. An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate which matches their current legal name. Not to mention the small, but equally important, population of trans and nonbinary people who are eligible to vote.
Ya. All out of the Handmaid’s Tale.
Republican voters say they love the women in their lives. But on some deep, disturbing level they must not actually like them. Or respect them.
Because men who respect women listen to them. And men who listen to women, and respect women, would never have voted for Trump.
And those who are humanly decently respectful of the rights of others do not support the Republican agenda — which for the past nine years has been starkly misogynistic, racist, and LGBTQIA hateful.
So what’s next?
Well, that one’s actually easy. A day of protest is what’s next for all of us. According to Indivisible, 5.2 million people marched on American streets on April 5, so we must double that number tomorrow, April 19. Please join, to show your support “in this fight to uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach”.
Register here. AND NO EXCUSES, since marches have been organized to take place in cities everywhere in America.
If patriots in Republican hotbeds like Naples, Florida are organizing on the streets behind democracy, then you, too, can find a march near you.
I will meet my fellow New Yorkers on the front steps of The New York Public Library tomorrow at 12:00 for tomorrow’s protest.
See you there — or out on the streets elsewhere — behind the rule of U.S. law, and the inalienable rights of all.
And while we might not pull it all off as fabulously as these two above, we can certainly try.
Because personal style is stealth power, and refinement is resistance.
Coming up next week!
The next Core Curriculum: Everything You Need to Know I Learned at Vogue: A crazy glimpse inside The Emerald City.