The SAVE Act… I’m Tired of Whiteness and Maleness Writing the Rules

Every time I think I'm done thinking or writing about the SAVE Act, I find myself back here again... I keep hoping there'd be nothing left to say. That it'd be gone by now.

But it's still here. And I think it's still here because the thing driving it—that pull to go backward—is still here too. Efforts to make our country less free. Less equitable. Less willing to honestly reckon with the harms we've already done, and the ones still happening right now.

Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash

We all deserve better than this. Better than where we’ve already been. Better than who we’ve already let ourselves be.

Here’s what I can’t shake: if we’re going to put barriers between eligible people and their ability to vote, I think we need to be certain there’s an actual, proven problem we’re solving. And we should be fairly confident the solution will actually help solve it.

When it comes to voter fraud, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud at a scale that has been shown to change election outcomes. What supporters of the SAVE Act say they’re trying to prevent is non-citizens registering to vote. But the evidence we’ve seen doesn’t suggest that’s happening in numbers that would justify the new barriers this bill would create for eligible voters.

Every time I read about this bill, every time I hear lawmakers talk about it, I feel it more strongly: this is what it looks like when people who are used to winning by cheating can’t win the old way anymore, so they invent a new one. Rather than expanding democracy, the move becomes to narrow who gets to participate. And too many people seem willing to stand beside them in it.

And this seems to follow a playbook I’ve watched whiteness and patriarchy use throughout our country’s history — and one I’ve seen other systems of oppression use too. Hold onto power at all costs. Whoever gets hurt along the way, so be it. Even white women.

I mention white women specifically because we’re not exempt. It’s not only the rights of those whiteness excludes that supporters of going backwards — like those in favor of the SAVE Act — seem to have in their sights. It’s our rights too. Voting is just one example.

Whiteness won’t protect us when it’s up against whiteness and maleness. Our rights are on the line right alongside everyone else’s who isn’t white and male. And if you’re someone who doesn’t feel strongly about voting one way or the other — the ability to have a voice in who represents us — please hear those of us who do. We don’t want unnecessary barriers to voting. Not for us. Not for anyone.

Now, I know some of the arguments that are likely to come next. I’ve heard them more times than I can count. “Voter ID laws are popular.” “Most Americans want secure elections.” “Most other countries require voter ID.” “Any amount of voter fraud, no matter how small, is too much.”

I don’t have a problem with reasonable voter ID laws — the kind that don’t get in the way of eligible voters casting a ballot. I want secure elections too. There are ways to get there that don’t disenfranchise people in the process. 

But that isn’t what the SAVE Act does. It doesn’t move us closer to secure or accessible elections. It just makes voting harder for many eligible voters. 

And again, we don’t have evidence of a widespread problem here. There are so many real problems affecting people’s everyday lives in this country. Widespread voter fraud just isn’t one of them.

I’ve had people — almost always white men — try to hand me “evidence” that the SAVE Act is a good idea. They tell me they have sources. They promise to send data. But nothing I’ve been shown has held up. None of it passes the CRAAP test, or any other method I know for evaluating whether a source is actually credible.

And all of it seems to skip right past the very real inequities that shape my life. My Black immigrant partner’s life. My biracial kids’ lives.

Sometimes I get stuck in the sheer male-centered caucacity of it — a white man speaking with utter confidence about circumstances that, because of his social position, he’s unlikely to have personally experienced. White men who already have easy access to voting. Easy access to acceptable identification. Representatives who overwhelmingly look like them helping shape the laws that affect all of us. Men who speak as though they understand everyone’s circumstances. White men who seem certain that my own account of my life, my family’s life, and our lived experience is somehow less trustworthy than their assumptions about it.

I could stay stuck there if it weren’t for the heartbreak underneath it. And the fear. That gut-level dread that someone else holds power over my life and my rights with little input from me. The grief of knowing that a world which already feels unsafe for my family can be made even less safe by people who don’t seem to recognize the danger in the first place. The sadness and frustration as I look someone in the eye, tell them they’re missing something real, that both my lived experience and the available evidence point in another direction, and watching their certainty leave no room for curiosity, empathy, or humanity.

It feels familiar though. It’s the same thing whiteness has asked of me my whole life. Get back in line. Stay quiet. Protect and maintain whiteness. Trust white men — even when it costs me my own wellbeing, even when it costs the people of color I love, even when it means betraying the truth, what I say I stand for, and who I’m trying to become.

That’s what legislation like the SAVE Act represents to me. It reminds me that whiteness — and other systems that hold onto inequity by deciding whose humanity matters more — still doesn’t get named as the real, documented problem it is. That whiteness continues to shape who gets to participate fully in this country. That gender does too. That inequity remains largely invisible while the people holding power continue pushing for more of it. That whatever allows us to dismiss one another’s needs as less legitimate than our own keeps right on working.

That’s why the whole thing feels like a distraction. A way of “solving” a problem that hasn’t been shown to exist at the scale being claimed while drawing attention away from problems we know are real. Racism. Sexism. Ableism. Heterosexism. Economic inequality.

I believe most people in this country want free and fair elections. To me, free and fair means every eligible person has an equal opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice without unnecessary barriers, intimidation, or fear — and to know that their vote will be counted.

Right now, we don’t all have that. Voter suppression has been a long, well-documented problem in the United States. And it continues today in new forms.

So if we’re serious about protecting our elections, let’s solve the problems we know exist. Let’s remove unnecessary barriers that keep eligible people from voting. Let’s confront voter suppression. And while we’re at it, let’s get serious about dismantling the inequity beneath it all — inequity that keeps shaping whose voice matters most.

The November elections will be here before we know it. One thing we can do is participate.

If you’re eligible to vote, I hope you’ll make a plan to do so. If you haven’t registered yet, you can register here. If you have, take a minute to make sure your registration is still active and your information is up to date. If you’re able, consider serving as a poll worker or volunteering with your local election office. And maybe invite the people you love to do the same.

I’ve never believed equity, freedom, or honestly reckoning with who we are and who we’ve been depends on perfect people. I think it depends on ordinary people choosing to care about one another enough to keep showing up.

I hope we’ll be those people.