'Recipe for trouble': Key GOP senator comes out against Trump's voter restriction effort
President Donald Trump's SAVE Act, an aggressive attempt to curtail voting rights, has earned a Republican opponent in the Senate.
The bill would place nationalized voter ID requirements, put draconian new restrictions on the process of registering to vote, and require voter rolls be purged more aggressively using an infamously unreliable Homeland Security system that frequently flags citizens as noncitizens. It has already earned support from almost the entire Republican Senate caucus, but Republicans currently lack the votes to either overcome a Democratic filibuster or change the Senate rules to avert one.
In her new op-ed for Anchorage Daily News, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) emphasized she supports voter ID — but not the SAVE Act in its current form.
"The Constitution largely entrusts states with the administration and oversight of elections, providing authority to hold them at the 'times, places, and manner' of their choosing," wrote Murkowski. "Restricting states’ ability to tailor their election systems to realities on the ground is a recipe for trouble. One size fits all rarely fits Alaska, and it will not in this instance, either. When it comes to elections, what is best for an urban state like Florida may not work in a highly rural state like ours."
Alaska already requires voter ID, Murkowski noted — but allows some non-photo IDs like hunting and fishing licenses, which would suddenly be ineligible under the bill.
But it's even worse, she said, because the bill's requirements for what can be used as an ID are so restrictive that even Alaska's driver's licenses don't qualify, because they don't specify the bearer's citizenship. In fact, only five states in the country currently have licenses that comply.
Moreover, the bill requires in-person proof to register to vote, which would mean people in the 80 percent of Alaska towns and cities that have no road in or out — around one in five people — would have to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars to fly to a city with one of the state's six regional elections offices.
"Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy," Murkowski concluded. "As doubt is cast on their legitimacy and public trust erodes, we would do well to avoid partisan reforms that sound good on paper but may work very differently in the real world, especially if the result would be a system that works for many but not all Alaskans."
This comes as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) — who, like Murkowski, is often considered a potential defector vote against GOP policies, and who is currently facing a tough re-election battle in November — has come out in support of the legislation.