The SAVE Act Is an Attack on the People’s Representation

May 7

The Save Act, or the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” is a piece of legislation being proposed to the Senate that threatens to drastically undermine the already limited representation and power of the working class and other oppressed peoples in the United States. The Save Act would require in-person voter registration with birth certificates, passports, or other even less available documentation, creating many new barriers and hurdles to voting, on top of the ones already in place, with the intention of creating an even greater ideologically-captured electoral process.

As with most historical examples of voter suppression, this bill will most affect those sections of the working class which are already underrepresented: poor, women, disabled, Trans, and Black and Brown workers. Historically, poll taxes in the United States served as a barrier against poorer, less privileged people casting their vote, particularly Black people [1]. Today, the Save Act threatens to create an economic barrier in the same way. Twenty one million people do not currently have access to the documents the act specifies and would have to pay for them from government agencies [2], including people of color, who are three times more likely to not have access to these documents [3]. Women workers, Trans workers, and anyone who has had a name change, face the issue of the information on their birth certificate or other documents not aligning with their current identity [4]. People who lost their documents for any reason would face this hurdle as well. Forcing all these people to get new documentation, in addition to all the other already existing barriers, is going to give workers even less of a voice in a state that is fundamentally hostile to them. On top of the need for these documents, they would now have to be presented in person to register to vote, making the process require more time and travel, and therefore more money, to complete. Having to present the documents in person to register would especially affect disabled workers. Previously, more than half of disabled voters voted by mail [5]. Financial and physical barriers to voting are nothing new, but this act would only make the situation worse.

Voting in the United States already presents many barriers, particularly for the same groups this act would primarily impact. Restrictions placed on online voting and mail-in voting, as well as gerrymandering, shutting down polling locations early, and voter suppression, are all factors that currently impact voters [6]. All of these barriers are in place in an already fundamentally undemocratic electoral system. Only two capitalist parties are allowed any significant power or success. These parties promote and platform bourgeois candidates, who devote their lives to protecting the interest of capital, and get the best coverage in corporate media. This further crushes the working and oppressed people of the country who already have no real representation. This reality, combined with the already present barriers to even casting your vote, should make the existence of the Save Act no surprise. The dictatorship of capital erodes even the mildest concessions to the workers. The capitalist-imperialist United States will suppress the working class and oppressed people at every opportunity.

The Democratic party markets itself as an opposition party to the Republican party that proposed this act. It is true that only one Democrat voted for it. This Democrat is Henry Cuellar of Texas. Cuellar had been previously pardoned by Trump for charges of bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy [7]. The question is, why does the Democratic party allow people like this in its ranks? Voting for awful things, and getting personal favors from the Republican president, all sound like things that would go against the goals of a functional opposition. The answer is that the Democratic party has no interest in stopping the Republican party's agenda. They may vote against them or use oppositional language at times, but what they will not do is hold firm and move things in the opposite direction. This is what senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had to say to Republican Mike Johnson about an earlier version of this legislation that was proposed in 2024: “So, Speaker Johnson, look at what's going on. You can't pass a bill unless we come together on a bipartisan agreement. That's what… has happened each time in the past you've tried to appease your right wing, it's failed and you've had to come to us and negotiate. We're ready to negotiate a bipartisan deal.”[8]. This is the “opposition” posed by the Democrats; the harmful legislation can still go through as long as it looks like the Democrats made it slightly less harmful. The Democrats bear every bit as much responsibility in this “democratic” charade. The Democratic Party is not an opposition party, it is a party of capital, ready to work hand in hand with the Republican Party to create barriers to oppress and exploit the workers and oppressed people

We must go beyond the limits the ruling class provides us: oppression and exploitation, but with our choice of either a red or blue can of paint. We must instead work to build the revolutionary working-class movement into a force capable of ending this oppressive system once and for all, establishing in its place a real worker’s government.

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Joseph Diaz

The SAVE Act Is an Attack on the People’s Representation

Capital Isn’t Built By One Man Alone: On “The Epstein Class”