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House set to vote on SAVE Act with implications for future elections · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: House lawmakers are expected to vote on the Save America Act.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: President Trump calling on Republicans to vote for the voter
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  Speaker 1: ID bill, saying it's needed for election security. Among other measures,
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  Speaker 1: the legislation would restrict mail in ballots, It would require
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  Speaker 1: Americans to show photo ID at polling places, and mandate
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  Speaker 1: states obtain proof of citizenship before registering a person to
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  Speaker 1: vote in a federal election. ABC News legal contributor and
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  Speaker 1: Hofstra law professor James Sample joins me Now for more
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  Speaker 1: on this and in James, the President says that the
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  Speaker 1: Save America Act is about election security, but some Democrats
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  Speaker 1: and critics argued that this legislation could actually disenfranchise millions
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  Speaker 1: of voters. What's at play here from a legal standpoint.
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  Speaker 2: Alex, this is potentially a very very big piece of
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  Speaker 2: legislation if it in fact gets through the House, and
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  Speaker 2: then we're somehow to get through the Senate, which I
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  Speaker 2: think is logistically speaking, a bigger obstacle. But to your question,
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  Speaker 2: much of what you described, which is entirely accurate, sounds
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  Speaker 2: relatively innocuous on its face until you start drilling down
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  Speaker 2: into the details and into the administration of this kind
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  Speaker 2: of a policy. The proof of citizenship is particularly pernicious
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  Speaker 2: in the sense that non citizens statistically speaking, do not
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  Speaker 2: vote in American elections. The risk reward calculus is extraordinarily
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  Speaker 2: bad for them to do so. The gaining of one
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  Speaker 2: vote versus the risking of criminality and even deportation is
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  Speaker 2: just not a risk reward costs benefit analysis that is.
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  Speaker 3: Favorable in any sense of the term.
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  Speaker 2: But twenty one million Americans lack easy access.
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  Speaker 3: To either a passport or a birth certificate.
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  Speaker 2: And this is particularly pronounced for women who have changed
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  Speaker 2: their name and who therefore don't, even if they do
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  Speaker 2: have a burst certificate, have access to a birth certificate
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  Speaker 2: that matches their married name. So what we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: here is a piece of legislation that can sound relatively innocuous,
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  Speaker 2: but that could very well have the effect of disenfranchising
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  Speaker 2: literally millions of Americans in order to save the possibility
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  Speaker 2: of a few votes that statistically, and over the course
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  Speaker 2: of study after study after study, we don't see in elections.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and you mentioned that twenty one million, I believe
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  Speaker 1: that those were stats compiled by the Brennan cent Or.
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  Speaker 1: I saw those as well, and it is really good
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  Speaker 1: to point out but I'm curious because under the US Constitution,
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  Speaker 1: states serve granted control of most aspects of elections. So
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  Speaker 1: if this bill does actually reach the president's desk, how
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  Speaker 1: might this impact individual states.
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  Speaker 3: That's a really good question, Alex.
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  Speaker 2: Article one, section four of the Constitution is what you're
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  Speaker 2: referring to, and that gives the states primary responsibility for
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  Speaker 2: administering elections. Congress gets to play a backup role, and
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  Speaker 2: other than signing legislation, the President of the United States,
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  Speaker 2: though he has tried to issue executive orders no matter
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  Speaker 2: who the president is, has.
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  Speaker 3: No role to play.
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  Speaker 2: And what the framers of the Constitution set up is
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  Speaker 2: a system that really we have fifty or fifty one
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  Speaker 2: and the territory where we start having DC and the
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  Speaker 2: other territories more than fifty modes of election around the country.
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  Speaker 2: That is sometimes a strength because decentralization can produce security.
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  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's a weakness.
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  Speaker 2: Because there are states that have particularly ineffective processes at times.
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  Speaker 3: But whether it is good policy.
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  Speaker 2: Or bad policy, you are right that other than for
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  Speaker 2: a backup role, states have the primary responsibility. And so
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  Speaker 2: if this legislation does reach the president's desk, it would
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  Speaker 2: be a significant federalizing of elections, and some would argue
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  Speaker 2: that that is contrary to the Constitution. On a policy level,
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  Speaker 2: there's a policy level, there's a legal level.
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  Speaker 3: Both of those would be questionable. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and James, what's interesting is, so I'm looking at
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  Speaker 1: this pole from October of twenty twenty four from Gallup.
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  Speaker 1: It showed that eighty three percent of Americans back a
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  Speaker 1: policy requiring people who are registering to vote for the
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  Speaker 1: first time to provide proof of citizenship. It seems as
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  Speaker 1: though like there's an appetite for this, but as you
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  Speaker 1: first frame that, it's because it feels like this this
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  Speaker 1: might be innocuous. Look, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has
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  Speaker 1: already said that legislation is dead on arrival in the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm curious, hypothetically, if it were actually to make
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  Speaker 1: its way to the President's desk, would that impact this
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  Speaker 1: year's midterms?
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  Speaker 2: It would have a massive impact on this year's midterms, Alex,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the reality is that one of the reasons,
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  Speaker 2: and voter ID polls particularly well, and you're citing that
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  Speaker 2: polling data. It's absolutely correct, voter ID polls especially well.
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  Speaker 3: People.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think that it is particularly burdensome to show
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  Speaker 2: proof of citizenship because most of the people in America
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  Speaker 2: would find that to be a relatively modest burden.
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  Speaker 3: But here's the thing. Our elections are sacred.
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  Speaker 2: Because the right to vote is equally distributed whether you
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  Speaker 2: are a person means or a person not of means,
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  Speaker 2: and many people who are persons not of means would
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  Speaker 2: have a very hard time obtaining those materials.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, James sample for us. Thank you for breaking this down.