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Floor Speech

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Ms. ALSOBROOKS. Mr. President, it is unfortunate that we are here today to debate the merits of this so-called SAVE America Act.

Right now, Americans are struggling with the rising costs of housing, healthcare, gas, groceries, and more. Earlier this week in Maryland, the average price of gas shot up 14 cents overnight. The American people are suffering from the effects of a trade war started by this administration and now are watching as we are stuck in an illegal and poorly planned military war in Iran.

This increasing unaffordability is an urgent crisis that actually demands a resolution, but unfortunately we have an administration that is completely out of touch. There are so many real issues that we could be working on that would actually benefit the lives of working families across our country, but we are here ignoring their wishes and debating this legislation because this President isn't living in reality. He has created a fantasy crisis and is committed to finding a solution to a problem that does not exist.

So my colleagues are here making arguments that don't hold up under any real scrutiny, claiming that this bill is necessary to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in American elections. But reality says that noncitizen voting in Federal elections is already against the law, and there are enforcement mechanisms in place. This is the law, and it should be followed.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle disingenuously claim that this bill is a commonsense election integrity measure focused on proof of citizenship, voter ID, and cleaner voting rolls. Reality says that, on top of everything else that people are dealing with right now, requiring even more paperwork would create real problems for so many people--like married women whose documents don't match because they changed their names to match their husbands or members of our military who move locations often in service of our country. It would be a problem for people who rely on mail registration or absentee voting. It would be an undue burden for our seniors, veterans, students, and rural voters. Voting already requires a form of American identification.

And so my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that this bill would provide necessary aggressive voter roll verification and removal of noncitizens from the rolls. Reality says that this aggressive Federal overreach would include requiring States to submit voter data to DHS, the same organization that is currently sending ICE goon squads of men with masks on to kill Americans in our streets. States would be required to submit their complete statewide voter registration lists to DHS for comparison through the SAVE program on an ongoing basis. That is completely impractical.

The SAVE program was not designed to be a voter registration system, and it predictably has resulted in false matches and false ineligibility flags. What is more, it gives DHS a continuing role in Federal elections that it is not equipped or designed to handle. It hands over critical information to an administration that I would dare say has already proven that it is not trustworthy and that it cannot or will not keep the sensitive data of the American people protected. It hands over information to an administration that has already failed this very basic test of using its power for retribution.

Reality says this is being treated as an emergency right now, and we understand why: Because it is a part of a broader electoral strategy that this administration needs to be in place ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. People are unhappy with the direction that our country is going in right now. They are upset that their government isn't working on the real issues that they are facing. And instead of addressing the affordability crisis that is staring us in the face--the affordability crisis that was caused by this President--this administration wants to guarantee a successful midterm election by ``fixing'' an electoral system that is not broken.

The President already issued an Executive order directing Federal Agencies to be more involved in election-related enforcement and citizen verification.

And since then, the DOJ has sought extensive voter data from nearly every State. At least 48 States and DC have received requests for their complete voter registration lists, and the DOJ has sued DC and 29 States, including Maryland, for refusing to provide statewide voter lists with driver's license and Social Security information.

This administration is counting on Republicans in Congress to sell their sick fantasy, and that is why we are here now, wasting precious time trying to fix a problem that is not real. But reality has refuted every single fantasy claim made in support of this bill.

So what are the architects of this bill actually seeking? Well, simply put, they are seeking to suppress the vote. This is not a standard voter ID bill. This bill is not about protecting democracy. Protecting democracy would eliminate barriers that keep more Americans from voting. This bill does not do that; it does the opposite.

This bill is a blatant attempt to kick eligible American voters off the rolls and make it more complicated for Americans to register and vote. States have already done an excellent job fashioning a system that works.

The fantasy world this bill envisions would disrupt the way voter registration and voting actually work in practice. It would undermine or severely limit online registration, registration by mail, motor- voter systems, same-day registration, and voter registration drives by requiring in-person presentation of documentary proof.

It would alter registration, list maintenance, and ballot-casting all at once, forcing States and election officials to rework systems that voters already rely on.

My home State of Maryland has worked hard to build a system that is both secure and accessible. This bill would undermine the progress that we and so many other States have made by replacing those successful, efficient State systems with new Federal mandates and new legal risks for elections officials.

It would result in wrongful removals from voter rolls and more undue burdens, putting new barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box.

Now, if the President and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to ignore the urgent crisis facing the Nation in order to fix issues with voting that actually do exist, they would endorse the bill that I have introduced, the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, that would criminalize knowingly spreading false information about the time, place, or manner of voting or about voter qualifications, and would prohibit threatening or coercing individuals not to vote or to vote in a certain way.

But that would require my colleagues to actually care about our democracy. They would sign on to the numerous bills by my colleagues that I cosponsored, like Senator Klobuchar's Register America to Vote Act. It would automatically register all eligible citizens to vote when they turn 18. But this, too, would require my colleagues to actually care about our democracy.

They would sign on to Senator Wyden's Vote at Home Act that would expand vote-by-mail, a method that has proven to increase voter participation. Yet that would require my colleagues to care about our democracy.

They would sign on to Senator Padilla's Voter Purge Protection Act that would prohibit States from using questionable voter purge tactics to take tens of thousands of eligible voters off the voting rolls. But that, too, would require my colleagues to care about democracy.

If they truly cared about democracy, they would have already signed on to the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that would restore the safeguards of the Voting Rights Act that was so shortsightedly gutted by the Supreme Court.

John Lewis lived through some of this Nation's most challenging times. His reality was seeing poll taxes and literacy tests disenfranchise thousands, harassment and death threats for trying to register voters, violent attacks for peacefully protesting. His reality was bravely standing up to hate, knowing that fighting for the right to vote was worth the blood he shed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

That very real crisis was met by the passing of the landmark Voting Rights Act, so instrumental to this Nation's progress that through everything he faced in his life, John Lewis said that his ``greatest fear is that one day we may wake up and our democracy is gone.''

You know, I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge last summer. It is something that I recommend that all who have the ability to do will do, so that especially the young people of our country will understand truly what has been put on the line in order for us to have the right to vote.

It wasn't lost on me, as I walked across that bridge and recognized-- to be honest with you, very similar to these goons running across our country, these ICE agents in masks. These are people who were essentially deputized to traumatize American citizens.

So the men who were on the other side of that Edmund Pettus Bridge were waiting for these young people--John Lewis was 22 years old when he took up this battle--walked across that bridge, and these people who were not even truly law enforcement officials had sticks that were wrapped in barbed wire.

Can you imagine the character of a man or a person who is capable of beating another human with a stick that was wrapped in barbed wire? But that is how strongly these people felt about depriving people of the right to vote. They beat him within an inch of his life because they did not want to give African Americans the right to vote.

So this bill would take real steps toward creating another crisis, a crisis that was John Lewis' ``greatest fear.'' America has a long, detailed history of people fighting, bleeding, and dying to secure the right to vote.

That hard-won freedom to speak with your vote should not depend on whether you have the time, money, or flexibility to satisfy a new set of hurdles that go to serve this administration's goals.

And I would say that those goals are intellectually dishonest goals, and they are not reality.

You don't save America by silencing the voices of Americans. I will repeat that. There is no way to save America by silencing the voices of Americans. You save America by embracing the ideals that set us apart to begin with. The reality is that we should be encouraging more people to take full advantage of their rights. That is why we should be making it easier for eligible citizens to participate in our democracy, not harder.

When a bill takes a fundamental right and wraps it in paperwork, penalties, and confusion, that is not election security; that is a step backward for American democracy, and that is not what the American people want.

They did not ask for an additional crisis to deal with. This administration has insisted on ignoring their calls for help on the affordability crisis, but maybe listening to their objections to this bill will open their eyes.

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