Cantwell Convenes Elected Officials & Nonpartisan Democracy Defenders From TX, ME, NC, OH, MT, & WA for Virtual Press Conference on Protecting Voting Access

Cantwell Convenes Elected Officials & Nonpartisan Democracy Defenders From TX, ME, NC, OH, MT, & WA for Virtual Press Conference on Protecting Voting Access

Senate voted 51-48 to open debate on GOP-led voter suppression bill this afternoon; Senate now debating 'SAVE America Act,' which could disenfranchise an estimated 21 million legal American voters

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) convened a group of current and former elected officials and representatives of nonpartisan voter advocacy groups for a virtual press conference on defending voter access in the face of the "SAVE America Act," a GOP-led voter suppression bill that could block an estimated 21 million legal American voters from casting ballots and sow chaos in the 2026 elections.

"The hallmark of a democracy is free and fair elections. And when you start to undermine that, and you start to question whether you have free and fair elections, you are truly undermining our power as a democracy," said Sen. Cantwell. "Why would you disenfranchise 20 million people when you have a system that is working successfully [and] has strong deterrence?"

"The SAVE America Act would create a particular hardship for older Mainers who rely on absentee voting," said Chrissy Hart, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Maine. "It would also uniquely impact our older northern Mainers born in Canadian hospitals whose documents may not satisfy the SAVE America Act's rigid requirements. These are American citizens who could find themselves unable to vote."

"The saddest and maybe most sinister element of [The SAVE America Act] is the in-person voter registration requirement," said Elisabeth Warner, Communications Director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. "Ohio has major cities, but we are also deeply rural. Each of our 88 counties has just one election office, usually in its largest city, and that leaves many rural Ohioans who account for a quarter of our population, disadvantaged in registering and re-registering to vote."

"Texas just got a real-life example of how changing the rules right before an election can cause people's votes not to count," said Veronikah Warms, Voting Rights Policy Attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, referring to the chaos of the state's Senate primary earlier this month. "Pulling the rug out from under eligible voters does not advance election integrity. It only weakens our democracy. If the SAVE America Act passes, that confusion will be voters' realities as we go into the 2026 midterm election and every election cycle thereafter."

"Many of the most disruptive and expensive provisions to this bill go into effect immediately upon enactment, with no runway for implementation or preparation," said Karen Brinson Bell, former Executive Director of the North Carolina Board of Elections & Co-Founder of Advance Elections, LLC. "Please do not set our country or these public servants up for failure."

"I'm just struck by how pleased I am that I live in the state of Washington, where our laws really provide very good accessibility to elections process, while also creating a system that has the highest level of security, transparency and accountability," said Greg Kimsey, Auditor of Clark County, WA. "Our country should be moving more in the direction of Washington [state] and not in the direction of Ohio and Texas."

"We've made it easy for you to convince the rest of your senators that possibly they ought to concern themselves about, oh, I don't know, some other things that affect America -- actually affect America," said former Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. "I don't know if you folks have noticed, but the price of my gasoline doubled here during the last two weeks."

The SAVE America Act was narrowly passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 11. If it were to pass the Senate it would impose new barriers to voting:

• A requirement that all mail-in ballots include a printed copy of the voter's picture ID.
• A requirement that anyone registering to vote, or changing their registration details, present a birth certificate, passport, or other proof of citizenship documents in person to their county elections office. A driver's license, even a standard REAL ID one, is not proof of citizenship.
• A new private right of action provision that would allow anyone to personally sue an elections worker who they claim registered a noncitizen, even erroneously - opening elections workers up to politically-motivated witch hunts.

These requirements may disenfranchise at least 21.3 million legal American voters. In Washington state, for example, 2.8 million citizens do not have a passport or an original or certified copy of their birth certificate that matches the name on their ID. The burden would especially fall on:

• The 1.6 million women in Washington state who have taken their spouse's name and whose birth certificate doesn't match their legal name;
• Rural voters, who in some parts of Washington state will need to make time for a round trip of up to six hours to their county elections office to register or change their documentation in person ahead of Election Day. Currently, those voters are able to make changes online;
• Young people, who are more likely to frequently change addresses.

Last month, Sen. Cantwell released a snapshot report detailing the burdens the SAVE America Act would impose on Washington voters - that report can be read in full HERE.

And this week, Sen. Cantwell released a snapshot report with new data breaking down just how much the SAVE America Act - a voter suppression bill that the GOP Senate majority intends to take up this coming week - would require from Washington state taxpayers.

According to a new analysis compiled jointly by the Washington Secretary of State's Elections Office and the Washington Association of County Auditors, the State of Washington and its 39 counties together would be forced to spend at least $35.7 million this year alone to comply with the burdens imposed by the SAVE America Act. Subsequent elections would cost at least $9.5 million and up to $14.6 million more than currently spent to administer. That report can be read in full HERE.

Despite President Donald Trump's consistent claims to the contrary, voter fraud is so vanishingly rare in the United States as to be statistically nonexistent. Even the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing thinktank behind Project 2025, found that an average of 36 fraudulent ballots have been cast every year over the last 40 years - nationwide. For context, around 154 million Americans voted in the 2024 election.

The same Heritage Foundation analysis found that Washington state sees an average of one case of voter fraud every three years. That amounts to an error rate of 0.000006% -- fewer than one in 10 million.

An election-by-election breakdown of when fraudulent ballots have been cast in Washington state can be found in today's snapshot report HERE.

Video of today's entire virtual press conference is HERE; video of Sen. Cantwell's statement is HERE; and a transcript of Sen. Cantwell's statement is HERE.

Sen. Cantwell has been a staunch defender of Washingtonians' voting rights and the vote-by-mail system and has been sounding the alarm about how the SAVE America Act would be disastrous for free and fair elections:

• On Feb. 24, Sen. Cantwell invited Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs as her guest to President Trump's State of the Union address to draw attention to the issue.
• On Feb. 20, she convened local leaders in Seattle for a press conference urging Washingtonians to fight back against these proposed new burdens to voting;.
• On Feb. 19, she gathered in Vancouver with the Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey and local chapter heads of the League of Women Voters and the NAACP for a press conference on how this bill would disenfranchise voters;.
• On Feb. 5, she appeared on MSNOW's Morning Joe to push back against the Trump administration's heightened efforts to interfere in state-run elections and collect private data on American voters. Video of Sen. Cantwell's appearance is HERE; a transcript is HERE.
• On Jan. 29, Sen. Cantwell joined Senate colleagues in a letter to AG Pam Bondi, pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop its unlawful pressure campaign to coerce dozens of states into providing the Trump Administration their voter rolls, which include voters' personally identifiable information. DOJ has sued 24 states - including Washington state - and the District of Columbia demanding the personal information of their voters.
• On Jan. 15, she joined Senate colleagues in a letter to United States Postal Service (USPS) Postmaster General David Steiner raising concerns with recent developments affecting postmark practices. Right before the holiday season, USPS changed its postmark practices, which could have significant impacts on voters nationwide and in Washington state - including rural voters, military and overseas voters, and many others who rely on rely on the mail to safely and securely cast their ballot.
• On Jan. 9, she joined 13 Senate colleagues in filing an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a significant case the Court will hear next week that affects voting by mail. The case, brought by the Republican National Committee, threatens the election administration practices of states like Washington that permit the counting of mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day to be counted when they are received within a certain number of days after Election Day.