Voting in Oregon is easy with motor-voter and online registration, and is exclusively done by mail-in voting. Your ease of voting is threatened by the proposed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act in the Congressional House of Representatives, HR 22, which is intended to prevent noncitizens from voting.

We already have laws preventing noncitizens from voting and actual instances of noncitizen voting are vanishingly rare, to the point of statistical nonexistence.

The SAVE Act effectively ends all online and mail-in registration, as well as nonprofit-led voter registration drives, by forcing voters to present proof of citizenship in person at election offices to register.

Additionally, the act disenfranchises tens of millions of eligible voters who either don’t have ready access to birth certificates or passports, or can’t easily get to an actual elections office. Since registered copies of birth certificates cost money, this is effectively a poll tax.

Finally, women in particular risk being disenfranchised since the majority of married women change their names, and would have an additional burden to prove why their name is different from the name on their birth certificate. HR 22 may be voted on in the next few weeks, but this profoundly undemocratic bill must be stopped!

LAURA GORDON

Seaside