The Headlines
Just two months into 2025, voters in Michigan and the US at large are already facing multiple threats to their fundamental right to vote. The federal SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise millions of eligible US citizens, and in Michigan, proposed constitutional amendment HJR B would do the same.
Today, I’m sharing more details on both of these policies, including where they differ, and what Voters Not Politicians is doing to fight back against this assault on our democracy.
The Details
- H.R. 22, also known as the SAVE Act, is an attempt by anti-voter lawmakers in the US House to restrict the ability of eligible American citizens to register to vote by introducing unnecessary and oppressive new identification requirements.
- The SAVE Act would require every single American citizen to bring specific documentation – like a passport or original copy of a birth certificate – to register to vote or update their voter registration. This includes when a person moves or changes their name.
- This would especially harm the two-thirds of Black Americans who lack a valid U.S. passport, the tens of millions of Americans who do not have readily available access to their birth certificates, and millions of married women who do not have birth certificates with their current legal name.
- The SAVE Act would up-end online voter registration, including for service members deployed overseas who could potentially be barred from registering or updating their voter registration. It would also severely complicate registering to vote by mail – a service many rural voters rely on.
- House Joint Resolution B, introduced in the Michigan House by Rep. Posthumous this past January, is a similar policy that would alter the Michigan Constitution, and directly undermine the expanded voting rights that Michigan voters just approved in 2022.
- Under House Joint Resolution B, eligible voters would no longer be able to register to vote using their driver’s license or other state-provided identification alone. The amendment would require that upon registering to vote, individuals provide some form of documentary proof of citizenship, which could include passport, naturalization papers, or certified birth certificate that matches their current legal name. Hundreds of thousands of Michigan voters are estimated to not have readily available access to these documents.
- According to the Secretary of State, HJR B is most likely to disenfranchise women – especially married women. It would also have a huge impact on seniors, adoptees, college students, tribal citizens, low-income earners, people in rural communities, Black Michiganders, and active-duty military servicemembers.
- Yesterday, MI Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson held a press conference to highlight the threat that both the SAVE Act and HJR B pose to our election system. Along with the direct threat of disenfranchising eligible voters, she also warned that HJR B would make it harder and more expensive to administer elections, and make our entire election process less efficient.
- Right now, HJR B does not have enough support in the legislature to garner the required two-thirds majority in both chambers that would place it on the ballot for voter approval. However, supporters of the amendment are making concrete steps towards a ballot initiative campaign to get the measure on the 2026 November ballot, and have already filed a ballot question committee to move forward with their plan.
- While the SAVE Act and HJR B are very similar anti-voter policies, there are a few differences between them.
- Firstly, the SAVE Act, if passed, would only apply to federal elections not state elections. This could potentially lead to a situation like what currently exists in Arizona, where the state must maintain two separate voter registration rolls. This policy disproportionately disenfranchised younger, nonwhite, and independent Arizona voters. Kansas also briefly had a state law similar to the SAVE act, which blocked one in eight citizens from registering to vote over a three year period. The law was eventually struck down by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
- The SAVE Act explicitly requires in-person voter registration. The language of HJR B does not address online and mail registration, however it does specify that individuals must present documentary proof of citizenship to the clerk.
- Both the SAVE Act and HJR B would require review and potential purge of currently registered voters. The SAVE Act stipulates that within 30 days, states must begin a program to review their rolls and remove vaguely-defined “suspected” non citizens. HJR B mandates that the Secretary of State must use a systematic process to “use all reasonable efforts” to establish citizenship of those in QVF. If the Secretary of State obtains information that the applicant is not a citizen, they must provide written notice within 7 days, and if the registrant does not respond within 60 days, they are to be removed. This places additional burden on Michigan’s almost 1,600 local election clerks.
- Voters Not Politicians, as the largest grassroots pro-democracy organization in Michigan and a pivotal partner in the Promote the Vote 2022 coalition, has invested years of work into improving Michigan’s electoral systems. Now, we’re once again mobilizing our volunteers to protect voters across the political spectrum and maintain our current secure and accessible election systems.
- In the past six weeks, we have sent out Dial for Democracy email action alerts to our subscribers, and hundreds of volunteers have taken action to call their state representatives, state senators, US representatives, and US senators. Our volunteers have already logged more completed phone calls in the first two months of 2025 than all of 2024!
- Our volunteers are incredibly driven around this issue and have shown they are ready to mobilize around protecting the voting rights they worked so hard to secure.
What’s Next
Since 2019, Michigan has gone from 31st to 2nd in MIT’s Election Performance Index because of the strength of our election administration policies. That progress has only been possible because of the work of Voters Not Politicians, our relentless volunteers and supporters, and our pro-democracy partners, including fellow advocacy groups and elected officials.
Both the SAVE Act and HJR B would needlessly disenfranchise millions of eligible voters, dismantle all the progress Michigan has made in recent years, and inject chaos into our election administration systems, all in the name of combatting non-existent election fraud.
Voters Not Politicians will continue to protect the investment Michigan voters have made in our elections by monitoring and combatting these attacks on our voter-approved, safe, modern, and accessible election systems.
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