House-passed SAVE America Act could disenfranchise millions of Washingtonians – Cantwell releases snapshot report demonstrating potential cost & time burdens on WA voters; Cantwell calls on FBI to speed investigation into 2024 Vancouver ballot box arsons
VANCOUVER, WA – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) joined local leaders and elected officials at the Clark County Elections Office to defend voter access and Washington’s Vote-By-Mail system from overreach by the Trump administration. The administration and Republicans in Congress are advancing the SAVE America Act, changing the rules for postmarking ballots, and trying to force states to turn over personal voter data.
“We need to fight back,” said Sen. Cantwell. “These changes will make it difficult for senior citizens, rural community voters, working parents and so many others to actually vote, and they want to change these rules right now, right before the midterm elections. If this goes to the President’s desk, these rules would take effect immediately. We need to stop the chaos.”
Today, Sen. Cantwell released a snapshot report showing who in Washington would face undue hurdles to voting if the SAVE America Act were signed into law. The report shows that certain populations – including people who live in rural areas, women who changed their name after marriage, and people who recently moved – would face additional, cumbersome burdens to prove their citizenship.
“The SAVE America Act is about restricting access to the ballot, and deciding who gets to participate in our democracy,” said Nancy Halvorsen, Membership Director of the Clark County & Washington League of Women Voters. “What will be the effect of these new proposals? You’ve got to find your birth certificate. Do you know where it is? Do you even have one? Do you know how to acquire one, do you have the money to do so? You have your documentation – well now you need to travel to the elections office during business hours, and you need to stand in line — there will be a line.”
“Democracy is not meant to be navigated like a maze,” said The Reverend Michael Jones, Vice President of the Vancouver chapter of the NAACP. “Democracy was never designed to exhaust the voter. It was designed to empower the citizen. When we protect voting rights, we protect civil rights. And when we protect civil rights we protect democracy itself…. Every generation has to decide whether to expand democracy or restrict it.”
Sen. Cantwell also noted: “Throw on top of that, the US Postal Service just chang[ed] their postmarking rules. No longer can you rest assured that your ballot will be postmarked when you mail it. Now, [your ballot] may need to go to a regional processing center, which could take days for it [to] be postmarked.
“For example, Clark County postmarking will happen in Portland, possibly days from when you dropped your ballot at a local post office. This is a huge problem for rural voters, where the processing center may be several days away.
“And lastly, the President signed an executive order, which is being challenged in court that prohibits states like Washington from counting ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received after Election Day. That too is another disenfranchisement.
“So here in Clark County in 2024, there were 9547 ballots out of 281,000 voters, so 3.4% of those ballots would not have been counted if that [postmarking] rule goes into effect. That is disheartening. The President is wrong. Adding the delay to the postmark is certainly not enfranchising voters, so we need to fight back.”
Speakers also addressed claims by President Trump and Republicans that widespread voter fraud is the purpose of the proposed new burdens on voters.
“My 28 years of elections administration experience has convinced me that the number of non-citizens voting in Washington has been extremely small,” said Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey. “I have never seen evidence that large numbers of non-citizens are voting anywhere in our country.”
“A person is more likely to be struck by lightning than they are to commit voter fraud,” said Halvorsen. “Claims of election fraud and inaccuracy are — quite simply — lies.”
“We verify voters here in Washington with a signature and a matching barcode, and we have an online system so voters can verify their vote was counted and counted correctly, and the evidence shows it is extremely secure,” said Sen. Cantwell. “You have to be a citizen. You have to prove your residence. You have to swear and attest that you are a citizen. Your signature is your undeniable identification and can be tracked and can show fraud, and it is already the law in our state and in our country. So that is why the SAVE [America] Act at the national level is so frustrating. It is going to not save us. It is going to cost us hardship and potentially denying voters the right to vote.”
Recalling the 2024 attempted arson of Vancouver-area ballot boxes, Sen. Cantwell said: “A place with Vancouver and Portland probably knows better than anybody else in America what it really does take to defend elections. I call on the FBI to continue their investigation in figuring out who blew up ballot boxes in this area. That’s what the federal government should be doing.”
Video of today’s entire press conference is HERE; video of Sen. Cantwell’s opening statement is HERE; photos are HERE; and a transcript of Sen. Cantwell’s opening statement is HERE.
Following the press conference, Sen. Cantwell joined Kimsey for a tour of the new elections office.
The SAVE America Act, which passed the House of Representatives last week 218-213 and is awaiting a vote by the Senate, is a “show your papers” mandate that would require Americans to present, in person, either a passport or birth certificate to election officials in order to register or change their registration to vote. The House passed the bill after President Donald Trump called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting,” saying, “The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.” Although the U.S. Constitution expressly gives states authority to determine how to administer their elections, while reserving authority for Congress to address elections by passing legislation – without giving the president authority to unilaterally interfere in elections – Trump has also said he intends to act on his own to changes the rules for elections, “whether approved by Congress or not!” Moreover, Trump has threatened voting by mail, saying, “There would be no mail-in ballots.”
The bill could disenfranchise millions of Washingtonians:
- According to the Center for American Progress, approximately 2.8 million citizens in Washington do not have a passport.
- Approximately 1.6 million women in Washington state who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.
- Under the SAVE America Act, Washingtonians who want to register to vote, or need to change their name, the address where they are registered, or other details would need to travel in-person to their county elections office and show proof of citizenship.
The burden would fall hardest on Washingtonians living in rural areas. This would affect voters in all 39 of Washington’s counties, but for example:
- In Clark County, an Amboy resident would need to make an approximately 1 hour and 40 minute round trip drive to the county election office in Vancouver and back.
- In Cowlitz County, a resident of Yale would face a 2 hour and 20 minute round trip to the county elections office in Kelso.
- In Pacific County, an Ocean Park resident would face a 2 hour and 10 minute round trip to the county elections office in South Bend.
- In Wahkiakum County, a Deep River resident would face a 1 hour and 10 minute round trip to the county elections office in Cathlamet.
Washington state started vote-by-mail in 1983, adopted optional vote-by-mail in 2005, and enacted universal vote-by-mail in 2011.
Sen. Cantwell has been a staunch defender of Washingtonians’ voting rights and the vote-by-mail system – both of which have come under attack in recent weeks.
- On Feb. 5, she appeared on MSNOW’s Morning Joe to push back against the Trump administration’s heightened efforts to interfere in state-run elections and collect private data on American voters. Video of Sen. Cantwell’s appearance is HERE; a transcript is HERE.
- On Jan. 29, Sen. Cantwell joined Senate colleagues in a letter to AG Pam Bondi, pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop its unlawful pressure campaign to coerce dozens of states into providing the Trump Administration their voter rolls, which include voters’ personally identifiable information. DOJ has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia demanding the personal information of their voters.
- On Jan. 15, she joined Senate colleagues in a letter to United States Postal Service (USPS) Postmaster General David Steiner raising concerns with recent developments affecting postmark practices.
- On Jan. 9, she joined 13 Senate colleagues in filing an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a significant case the Court will hear this year that affects voting by mail. The case, brought by the Republican National Committee, threatens the election administration practices of states like Washington that permit the counting of mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day to be counted when they are received within a certain number of days after Election Day.
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