SAVE US FROM THE SAVE TRUMP ACT

 The SAVE Act is really the SAVE Trump act. Trump has decided to hold hostage any homebuyer relief because, for him, suppressing the votes of those he believes would vote against his interests in November is most important.. What he did not count on was that the GOP in the Senate and now in the House believe the SAVE act would hurt them as much as it would the Democrats...Today's SCOTUS decision that would let late acceptance of mail-in ballots would probably not be affected. Here is a refresher course on the SAVE Trump Act: from my earlier blog posting:

SAVE us from SAVE: The radical piece of legislation before the Senate would have at least three particularly obnoxious provisions designed to keep certain groups of people from voting, or would require extraordinary efforts and money to prove citizenship. Particularly harmed by the requirement to provide citizenship would be married women, the poor, and seniors who do not have passports or cannot find or get certified copies of birth certificates, divorce, and name change papers so they match driver's licenses with a photo. ID.. It would expose personal data now held by separate states to partisan centralized federal officials, for suppression targeting methods and dirty tricks. The motivation for this piece of legislation is not to enhance vote integrity but to give the advantage to the GOP in the midterms. Trump has admitted that.

Their whole premise is built on a lie that illegals voted and caused Trump to lose in 2020, for which no evidence has ever been found.

Another excuse Trump likes to make for his loss in 2020 was that there was extensive fraud in mail-in ballots. Therefore, his answer: only ballots received by election day should be counted... cutting out most active military votes or leaving them subject to the whims of the postal delivery service. (A lower court also scotched that postal service role this week)Some states would have to change their already existing rules and laws to conform. In fact, a study taken exposes Trump's claim as BS, and I cannot find any evidence to the contrary. (The SCOTUS 6/29 decision left the status quo in place)

More on the SAVE attack on voters' ability to vote:

1) It would keep married women from voting if their ID does not match their birth certificate names or even passport names. (Estimated 50 percent of voters do not have passports). What does your driver's license have as your photo ID name? Divorce papers would also have to be produced, or legal documentation of name changes would have to be provided.

2) All of your personal information, driver's licenses, social security numbers, and personal data held by State officials would have to be handed over to the Department of Homeland Security as they search first for registered illegals, turn out ICE to "protect" their own voting interests at polling places,, and God knows whatelse it could be used for if say a dictator who may not be one you supports takes over now or in the future.

3) This federalization enables big brother government to manipulate elections to suit the outcome they want by giving them the tools to identify targeting groups or kinds of legal voters that may not support them by voting roll purges and other strategies. The beauty of the current state control of such information is that 50 states can control their data instead of one federal government, in the hands of a party or single strong leader, being able to affect the outcome and votes in elections.

.The premise used to rationalize this legislation is stopping illegals from voting, a line MAGA has swallowed whole without any thought or care about evidence. For over 6 years, proof of the"steal" of the 2020 vote has been investigated, rejected by courts and hearings, and never proved. It is still just a theory to excuse a loss or a suspicion. Never mind, keeping certain voters from voting is a political strategy that MAGA embraces because they see a political advantage for them in the midterms. Heads up MAGA. You may not always be in control of the Oval Office, Congress, or the judiciary. What happens if the shoe is on the other foot, and the people you consider to be political enemies are now in power?

How to tell a political lie from the truth and the implications of the answers on Nov 2026 midterms

Update: 6/8/2026, Trump stormed off an interview with Kristen Welker of NBC when she tried to challenge him with actual evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. Shouted Trump, there is plenty of evidence, more evidence ...and instead of presenting it, he got up and left, calling Welker stupid among other insults. The stupid are those who cannot tell the difference between "more" and "enough". The point is not a few more examples..  It is the volume of those examples that would have proved the election was stolen.  That has never been found after every case presented to a judge, purported to show fraud was dismissed by a judge (except one) for lack of evidence, or that there was not enough evidence to change the outcome. Judges represented both Trump and prior Democratic appointees.,Without evidence that the outcome was affected, there is no evidence that the election was stolen.  This constant lie by Trump is his rationale for J6, for slush fund payoffs, for supporting election deniers like Tina Peters, who took orders from him and acted on it ways that violated state criminal statutes, ICE suppression of Hispanics, a war against mail-in ballots, and the BS war against California's ranking complicated vote count method that deviates from the usual primary system, show me your papers in the defeated SAVE act, and more. 

The California vote count is slow coming in, but even before the final total, Trump was claiming it was stolen.  https://votingsystems.cdn.sos.ca.gov/oversight/directives/irv-faq-060409.pdf

Continuing with the original 6/4/2026 post:

How do you tell a political lie from the truth? There are serious implications, depending on the answers you get, for the November 2026 midterms and for whether the election will be stolen or the integrity will be protected. If you only get your news from one or two "trusted sources" and hear a few examples, the next question is how widespread these selected examples of fraud were, and whether they were sufficient to have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.  

One way to tell a lie from the truth is if, instead of evidence of how widespread something was, the answer you get is an example, a story, a judicial finding that one person, or even one county like Fulton County, GA, was found guilty, or some evidence or not. Watch the election denier neglect presenting evidence that the example represented enough of a problem to justify a federal takeover by whatever means, including violent acts like in J6. The SAVE Act, also inspired by the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, which was so voter suppressive, was just defeated in the Senate. That was a dire piece of legislation in search of an actual dire problem to fix, resulting in dire unintended consequences.  

The data and every attempt to assert the claim before any court that there was enough fraud to have changed the outcome failed for lack of evidence.   Ever since 2020, MAGA has been consumed by the search for missing pieces to justify their beliefs, and so far, after 6 years of trying, they have failed. They are trying to find a poster child in Georgia and one county, but even if they could find some anecdotal evidence or if they didn't, how did what happened there mean it happened in the thousands of counties elsewhere? 

So, where do you get the data and evidence outside of your "trusted sources"? AI is helpful if you ask the question several ways.  That way, you may avoid a slanted answer.   Usually, AI will summarize one source, and the screen may show a variety of answers, a menu, and links to other sources.  If you ask for evidence or examples of how and whodunit, you will get some anecdotes. Ask for data on frequency and impact, and you will get another viewpoint: there was no finding by any due process judge that there was enough fraud to overturn the 2020 election.  The MAGA response: we'll keep digging; the evidence has got to be there somewhere. That is enough to satisfy the loyalists to the MAGA cause. The president's word is all they need.

Here is one source I thought was fair to provide in response to the question raised: how widespread was fraud in 2020? After all, Congress-sponsored information sources had been objective in budget analyses.  So I tapped into the information supplied by Congress, which members rely on for research. Congress does have the power to make changes in certain circumstances. Here is what happened when I clicked on https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108824/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20190129-SD020.pdf    I was immediately directed to the ultra-conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, the architect of the unitary form of government that presented a plan to defang Congress and the judicial branch and put the actual power in the hands of an all-powerful autocratic president,  Project 2025.   Ok, I said, let's see what they have.  I got this: anecdotal reports of selective election fraud that actually got a guilty verdict after due process. The evidence was on state-by-state convictions over at least the past 10 years, some of which were relevant in 2020. 

I wondered how many of those prosecutions resulted in convictions and led to a judge or jury actually overturning the 2020 elections. There was plenty of data and evidence presented, but not enough to prove the point in a court of law, and in many cases, no evidence or data at all.   

In the meantime, ICE armed for the Middle East battle, may be sent to Nov 2026 polling places on the unproven claim of illegals, ie. Hispanics were voting (scaring the toot out of anyone who looked Hispanic and was legally registered). "Suspect" ballot boxes may be seized and kept from the public, and Secretaries of State's security and any protection from tampering. There will be a huge attempt to challenge the legitimacy of voters, from registration to ballot casting, and mail-in ballots that, per Trump's executive order, will only be accepted and counted if the post office verifies federal registration lists that do not exist.  All of this will be in the name of "voter integrity" or "vote integrity? and the election results will be delayed amid the ensuing chaos and court challenges. on the constitutionality ...all justified by a demonstrable lie.

We are no longer a nation that is a political 50-50 split; it is now 60-40 to 58-42 split: advantage Democrats

Common wisdom used to be this was a 50 /50 split in the American voters' opinion polls:..half for the GOP and half for Democrats.  That has shifted to about  58 percent to 60% for Democrats and 42 to 40 percent split in approval for the GOP. This is evident even in the 2025 data,study and it does not reflect the recent shift in Hispanic, independent, and young people's votes away from the GOP and MAGA. Today's polls may reflect the shift.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/19/donald-trump-approval-rating/89177997007/

https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54341-worsening-economic-outlook-donald-trump-iran-voting-march-13-16-2026-economist-yougov-poll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZTtTtR21YM   recent ABC/Washington Post poll

This is a macro view, but it does not apply to every voting district..

 As the GOP loses ground. how much does the loyalty to the MAGA viewpoint play in the GOP. I would have thought it would have been higher than 50%, but that was the finding in a study. https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2025/02/24/majority-of-republicans-nationally-identify-as-maga-for-first-time-in-unity-poll.   The allegiance to MAGA is growing.  Nonetheless, the swing vote within the GOP is still large enough to make any rift significant.,  That does not mean it automatically translates into political power loss.  

 Support for one or the other side of this voter poll split is also specific to location and the number of Congressional districts, states, or electoral college votes, voting districts that have a record, demographic, and dominance of one side of the divide or another. What it does show is that whatever is considered a swing or near swing district will still determine outcome in both November 2026 midterms and in the 2028 presidential race..  The rest of the voting districts are set in concrete. The electoral college laws are also responsible for this imbalance, which has resulted in nearly every presidential election showing a larger popular vote for Democrats than the winning GOP candidate. The advantage favors the GOP, and Democrats must outperform them with the popular vote. Not every voter who contributed to the 60% non Trump vote wlll vote for Democrats. They could opt to stay at home on election day.

Three factors may influence the remainder of the year. GOP/Trump policies that threaten previous Hispanic voters with ICE cruelty, the struggles of young people saddled with student debt, and AI as an entry-level job opportunity killer. The other is voter suppression of perceived opponent groups:, ICE agents at polling places, and making it difficult for those who are large numbers unfriendly to the GOP, particularly women, such as the SAVE act attempts to do.  Disillusionment by independents and non-MAGA with Trump's promises and failures to make good on them is a third.  This one may be growing thanks to his damage to affordability and entanglement in foreign wars, such as Iran.

The SAVE Act is now being debated in the Senate and is predicted to go down in defeat, even if Trump vetoes the version that survives and needs a 60-vote count to override his veto. Senators, even in some safe states, are not sure who will be hurt more: women or their own, poorer, undereducated rural  White voter base.

The current version of the SAVE proposal makes it hard for those they see as their opponents to vote, but it has a serious backfire in it that makes even GOP Senators uneasy unless they come from ruby red states. The SAVE Act places a burden on women that most men do not have. It requires many women to jump through additional hoops in order to be able to vote. Married or divorced women have to tie their accepted picture ID to their birth certificate to make name changes via marriage or other situations. This will certainly hurt Democrats, but that also will hurt the MAGA base, which is mostly rural, poor, White,  working class, and with low education levels, because they too have to cough up money to get the right photo ID and the accepted documentation of their birth and make it through those administrative hurdles. Elderly in both parties will be hurt, but less in blue higher-income states because they are more likely to have a US passport, which is accepted proof of citizenship/and name conformity. Elderly voters usually trend heavily toward the GOP.  Because of the cost involved in getting a certified birth certificate, passports, or a conforming ID, this can be seen as an unconstitutional poll tax, but that will have to play out in the courts.

Why pick on the women voters anyway?

Today, a 56% majority of women identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, while 37% affiliate with or lean toward the GOP. up 4 percentage points since 2015 and is at one of its highest points since 1992. Among men, there has been less recent change: 48% of men identify with the GOP, and 44% are Democrats or lean Democratic, a long-standing divide. Both gender and educational gaps are expanding.  https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/20/wide-gender-gap-growing-educational-divide-in-voters-party-identification/