Guests

Experts are calling it “the worst voter suppression bill ever seriously considered by Congress.” As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on a Trump-backed voter ID bill known as the SAVE Act, millions of citizens who lack easy access to its required forms of documentation are now at risk of disenfranchisement. “Republicans are singularly focused on making it harder to vote and pursuing this MAGA fever dream,” explains Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. “It is the overarching goal of the Republican Party now to make it harder to vote.”

The groups most at risk of disenfranchisement include people who have changed their names after marriage, older voters who never received birth certificates, rural voters who could find it increasingly difficult to register to vote and trans people who have changed their names or gender markers on government documents. The GOP and MAGA movement’s goal, says Imara Jones, the founder and CEO of TransLash Media, “is to enshrine anti-trans discrimination in the law, because what they’re doing is using trans people as a road test in order to try to figure out how to disenfranchise and marginalize and strip citizenship away from millions of Americans who disagree with them.”

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

The Senate is debating the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act, following intense pressure from President Trump to pass the bill before the midterm elections, saying he won’t sign off on any bill unless that one’s passed. Voting rights experts say the SAVE Act could disenfranchise millions of citizens who lack easy access to what would be required — either a birth certificate or a passport, or who have changed their birth names, including many married women and trans people.

We’re joined now by two guests. Imara Jones is the founder and CEO of TransLash Media, host of its investigative podcast, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine. And Ari Berman is voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine, his latest piece headlined “The World Is on Fire. Gas Prices Are Rising. Republicans Are Trying to Make It Harder to Vote.”

Ari, let’s begin with you. We just have a few minutes. Lay out what this bill would do. Who has access to a passport? Less than half of Americans. Who has access to a birth certificate? What would this mean for the American voters?

ARI BERMAN: Hi, Amy. Thank you for having me back on to discuss this.

So, the SAVE America Act this could disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans who don’t have access to the documents needed to register and vote under this bill. The centerpiece of it is a “show your papers” requirement, requiring a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. That could disenfranchise tens of millions of people. Only half of Americans have a passport, for example. Twenty-one million Americans don’t have access to their citizenship documents. That probably understates the number of people that could be disenfranchised, because there are 69 million married women who have a different last name than the name on their birth certificate. It also requires you to show your documentation in person at an elections office, which means that people in rural areas could drive up to eight hours just to register vote. It could effectively end mail registration, online registration, voter registration drives.

So, there’s a reason why voting rights advocates believe this is the worst voter suppression bill ever seriously considered by Congress. And it’s just crazy, with everything that’s going on in the world — the U.S. invasion of Iran, rising gas prices, the economy in shambles — that, instead, Republicans are singularly focused on making it harder to vote and pursuing this MAGA fever dream.

AMY GOODMAN: Isn’t this not so surprising, as President Trump goes down in popularity, he wants to limit the number of people who could vote against him? I mean, talk about especially African Americans and poor people in the South when it comes to having access to a birth certificate.

ARI BERMAN: That’s true. I mean, Trump and Republicans are singularly focused on making it harder to vote. It is the overarching goal of the Republican Party now to make it harder to vote. There are lots of people that don’t have these documents. For example, if you were born at home in the Jim Crow South, you never had a birth certificate. So there’s elderly voters in the Jim Crow South who never got that documentation.

But I will also say, Amy, the bill could hurt Republicans in a lot of ways. You look at the states that have the lowest rates of passport ownership. They all voted for Trump. Married women who change their names are more likely to be Republicans than Democrats. Rural voters who have to drive eight hours to register to vote are more likely to be Republicans than Democrats. So, in their zest to try to disenfranchise voters, I don’t think Republicans have thought through the fact that they may be disenfranchising some of their own voters, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Imara Jones. President Trump is now demanding the SAVE America Act include bans on trans youth healthcare and sports participation. Talk about the amendments that will be voted on. And again, he says he won’t sign off on any other legislation unless this is passed.

IMARA JONES: Right. But we also know, more broadly, that the SAVE Act provisions that have been enacted at the states already have disenfranchised up to 200,000 trans people. That was reported by NBC News in 2024. Additionally, now the administration is demanding the inclusion of these particular riders and provisions. And what it shows is that for the Republican Party, the issue of trans people is central to their identity. As a matter of fact, we know that Donald Trump told people in January, told the Republican Congress that this was the issue that they were going to run on in 2026. And this project is not just some marginal culture war. People have to understand that the erasure of trans people is a part of their broader vision to remake America, which is why, at every single turn, at every single opportunity, they take that opportunity to enshrine anti-trans discrimination into American law.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about birth certificates when it comes to trans people.

IMARA JONES: Well, I mean, this is going to be a mess, because there are certain states where trans people are able to change their gender marker, so there are going to be some trans people who are going to be able to vote or present these documents. But there are many trans people who do not. And so, if you do not have a passport, and if you have to present a birth certificate, if there is any difference between your ID and who the person in front of you believes that you are, then that is a reason to deny you the right to vote. And as I said, there are already 200,000 trans people in states that have implemented SAVE Act-like laws that have been disenfranchised already.

AMY GOODMAN: In just the last two months, you have pointed out that Kansas retroactively invalidated the driver’s licenses of some 1,700 trans residents?

IMARA JONES: Right. And the whole point is we know that these laws don’t stay in one state. Everything is a test. Everything is a road test. And so, now that we know that this law has passed in Kansas, it’s already been introduced in Oklahoma. It’s going to spread like wildfire across the country. At every single turn, their goal is to enshrine anti-trans discrimination in the law, because what they’re doing is using trans people as a road test in order to try to figure out how to disenfranchise and marginalize and strip citizenship away from millions of Americans who disagree with them.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what are you doing about this?

IMARA JONES: So, I think that what we do is tell people what’s happening. I think that what we do is to underscore for people that this is not — again, it’s not a culture war. It is a political project that has broad implications for the rest of the country.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Ari Berman, they’re saying driver’s licenses are not enough. As many as 69 million people who’ve taken their spouse’s name don’t have a birth certificate matching their legal name. More than 140 million U.S. citizens don’t possess a passport, which, by the way, costs something like $165 to apply for one. We have just 30 seconds.

ARI BERMAN: Well, the SAVE Act is a modern-day poll tax in so many different ways. They’re trying to make it seem like it’s requiring documentation that everyone has. It’s requiring documentation that people don’t have, that’s expensive to get, that people don’t carry around with them every single day. So this is not a voter ID bill. This is a “show your papers” bill. It would have far-reaching ramifications. Many more people would be affected by this than Republicans suggest. And it’s just crazy that this is the thing that Republicans are focusing on when there’s so many other problems in the world. It’s doomed to failure. But the worry is that when it fails, Trump is going to take more extreme action to try to interfere with the midterms. This is just the beginning of a much bigger fight over the president’s desire to interfere in the midterm elections.

AMY GOODMAN: Ari Berman, I want to thank you for being with us, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine. We’ll link to your article, “The World Is on Fire. Gas Prices Are Rising. Republicans Are Trying to Make It Harder to Vote.” And Imara Jones, founder and CEO of TransLash Media and host of its investigative podcast, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine.

Again, next Monday, 7 p.m. Eastern, live-stream at democracynow.org our 30th anniversary celebration at Riverside Church here in New York, with Patti Smith and Michael Stipe and Angela Davis and others. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.