Chuck Darwin<p>In an interview with Slate, <br>Wendy Weiser, <br>a leading expert on democratic rights at the Brennan Center for Justice, <br>estimated that <br>❌up to 21.3 million people could be disenfranchised by the SAVE Act, <br>which “would also <br>💥completely upend voter registration[,] <br>💥end mail registration[,] <br>💥end voter registration drives[,] <br>💥end online registration, <br>💥and make it much harder to do automatic voter registration,” <br>she warned.</p><p>The SAVE Act’s passage would enormously <br>🔥disenfranchise citizens without passports, <br>as well as <br>🔥“rural voters, voters with disabilities, older voters,” <br>and other vulnerable people who are<br> “going to face special burden,” Weiser said.</p><p>Similar problems would occur should <a href="https://c.im/tags/mail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>mail</span></a>-in <a href="https://c.im/tags/voting" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>voting</span></a> be dismantled<br>-- the practice has been a particular target of Republicans. </p><p>Now -- making use of fringe legal interpretations <br>and building upon an unorthodox Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, <br>-- the Trump administration hopes to ❌establish the precedent that ballots received after Election Day are invalid.</p><p>As Diaz commented, <br>“Egregiously, the executive order tries to <br>override state laws in 17 states.” </p><p>Local laws ensure that late-arriving ballots are counted, <br>as long as they’re postmarked before Election Day. </p><p>Diaz points out that barring this method is also going to ⚠️disenfranchise overseas service members <br>who very commonly vote by mail. </p><p>And internationally mailing proof of citizenship documents is not a safe or viable practice.</p><p>“All the policies that are in [the order],” Diaz said, <br>“are things that individual states have tried before <br>— and they’ve all been disastrous.” </p><p>For instance, <br>proof of citizenship requirements in Kansas and Arizona <br>necessitated a vast administrative burden to review documents. </p><p>Those laws also faced a bevy of challenges. </p><p>After years of litigation, <br>Kansas’s rule was struck down. </p><p>“They got sued, and they lost,” said Diaz. </p><p>But in the meantime, the rule “ended up preventing tens of thousands of eligible American citizens from registering to vote.”</p><p><a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trump-assumes-unheard-of-powers-in-ordering-federal-overhaul-of-elections/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">truthout.org/articles/trump-as</span><span class="invisible">sumes-unheard-of-powers-in-ordering-federal-overhaul-of-elections/</span></a></p>