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One of my favorite political slogans of all time is “a solution in search of a problem.”
It’s often used in debates at the Nebraska Legislature to describe proposals that impose new rules to address a problem that doesn’t exist. You might also call it government overreach.
That phrase is being used a lot today to describe President Trump’s effort to change election laws through the dramatically named “SAVE America Act.”
Such an inflammatory name suggests the country is in crisis and needs “saving,” justifying a sweeping overhaul of election law.
Well, that’s a load of the stuff they scrape off feedlot floors. Election fraud is not a problem. It’s very, very — one more time — very rare. First off, the power to govern elections belongs to the states under the U.S. Constitution, not the president or Congress.
Of course, constitutionality hasn’t always slowed our current president. Legal experts warned that presidents cannot impose tariffs, but Trump forged ahead anyway, only to have them struck down by the Supreme Court. Now the government faces the messy task of refunding billions that were improperly collected.
As originally written, the SAVE America Act would have required voters to present documents such as a birth certificate or passport every time they voted. I don’t know about you, but I have no idea where my birth certificate is, and I’m pretty sure my passport expired years ago.
The House amended the bill — likely because the ID requirements went too far and the votes weren’t there. The version now before the Senate is still burdensome. It would require photo ID to vote and force states to submit voter rolls to federal authorities for scans — said to be flawed — to search for noncitizens voting.
Here’s the catch: almost no noncitizens are voting. Research by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law estimates the rate of voter fraud at between 0.0025% and 0.003% — roughly one case per 40,000 to 333,333 voters.
States that have spent heavily combing voter rolls have found little, if any, evidence of noncitizens voting.
Despite all that, Trump continues to insist he didn’t lose the 2020 election and that it was “rigged.” Yet dozens of lawsuits alleging fraud failed for lack of evidence, and recount after recount confirmed he lost.
In short, election fraud is fake news. (There’s another old political phrase that comes to mind: Get over it.)
Yet Trump and his allies continue pushing major changes to voting laws. And if Congress doesn’t pass the SAVE America Act — now reportedly being dubbed the “Make Elections Great Again Act” — there are reports he may try to impose changes through executive orders.
That would amount to a federal takeover of what has long been a state responsibility.
New ID requirements adopted so close to November elections would likely confuse voters and election officials — and keep some people from voting simply because they lack the required ID.
Trump has been clear about his goal: guaranteeing Republican victories at a time when polls suggest his party could lose seats in Congress as his approval ratings sink.
We live in a strange political era, when a politician can campaign against wars and then start them, or claim an election was rigged while trying to rig the next one himself.
Last time I checked, voting was still a constitutional right and an election process run by the states, not Washington.
Yes, IDs should be checked, and only citizens should vote. But that’s already happening. No need to save us.us.
