From The New Republic

How the Republican War on Women Extends to Voting Rights
Most women vote Democratic. And most still change their name when they marry. And that’s where the GOP sees an Achilles’ heel.
Thom Hartmann
September 19, 2024

Republicans don’t want women to vote. They now think they may have a strategy that could prevent them from doing so. House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump were pushing the Safeguard American Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, demanding it be part of must-pass legislation to fund the federal government for another year (the funding runs out at the end of this month, and then the shutdown begins).

It died in the House Wednesday night, but, like a bad penny, you can bet it’ll return.*

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Trump, Johnson, and J.D. Vance claim that the SAVE Act is necessary to prevent people who aren’t citizens from voting, but they are entirely unable to prove that any meaningful number of noncitizens have ever illegally voted in any American election. After all, it’s a felony for a noncitizen to vote, and few are stupid enough to take that sort of a chance.

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As NBC News noted: “The Brennan Center found just 30 suspected noncitizen votes amid 23.5 million votes in 2016, suggesting that suspected noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001% of votes cast. Trump’s own election integrity commission disbanded without releasing evidence of voter fraud, even though he’d claimed 3 million undocumented immigrants had voted in 2016 costing him the popular vote.”

Not only will illegal voting get you years in prison, but it’s one of the most easily discovered crimes. Sean Morales-Doyle, a lawyer for the Brennan Center, laid it out: “This is a crime where not only are the consequences really high and the payoff really low—you’re not getting millions of dollars, it’s not robbing a bank, you [just] get to cast one ballot. But what also makes this somewhat unique is that committing this crime actually entails the creation of a government record of your crime.”

So why is this the hill Republicans are willing to die on? Why would Johnson, Trump, and Vance (and so many other Republicans) put so much effort into a lie that will, if acted on, create chaos for American voters?

Source: Open Thread | The GOP War On Women Includes Attacking Their Voting Rights | 3CHICSPOLITICO