The Navajo Nation Council's Naabik'íyáti' Committee, in its unanimous decision to oppose the federal legislation, also known as H.R. 7296, said the bill will force many of its voters to travel more than 100 miles to comply with its proposed requirements and make multiple trips for registration, primary and general elections, according to a Thursday announcement from Office of the Speaker Crystalyne Curley.
"For many Navajo people, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. We are thinking about our elders and grandparents, many of whom were not born in hospitals and do not have birth certificates. Under the SAVE Act, they would be required to travel long distances, multiple times, just to register to vote and cast their ballots," said Curley, who sponsored the legislation.
The bill will require individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and to cast ballots in federal elections through a REAL ID, U.S. passport, military identification or other forms of identification that often require birth certificates, birthplace or other documents to prove citizenship.
The legislation also mandates that anyone registering to vote by mail must present their identification documentation in person at the closest precinct.
According to the tribal committee, with current gas prices averaging around $4 per gallon on the Navajo Nation, the additional trips would present a financial setback, particularly for low income voters.
"We understand this issue is very political in Washington, D.C., but this is not a time for tribes to be quiet, we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines," Curley said.
H.R. 7296 was introduced in January by U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and has been referred to the U.S. Committee on House Administration, according to legislative records.
In addition to opposing H.R. 7296 , the Navajo Nation called on Congressional leaders to work collaboratively with tribes to strengthen access to voting, according to the tribal committee.
"We are calling on our Congressional leaders to oppose the SAVE Act and instead partner with tribes to expand voting access," the committee said. "We are ready to work with both Republicans and Democrats to find meaningful solutions."
The Navajo Nation isn't the first to sound an alarm over how proposed voter identification legislation will impact Indigenous residents, particularly those who live on reservation lands that are often located in remote areas.
Earlier this month, Native American Rights Fund attorney Jacqueline De León and Nicole Hansen, an attorney for the Campaign Legal Center, said in a blog post that all versions of the legislation will harm Indigenous voters.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE Act, and the Make Elections Great Again Act intend to impose "extreme documentation requirements on the voter registration process, silencing millions of Americans by making it harder to participate in our elections," they said in the March 12 post.
The SAVE Act, also introduced by Roy, is now before the U.S. Senate after passing Congress last month by a 218- to 213 vote, with all Democratic lawmakers and one Republican lawmaker voting against it.
The Make Elections Great Again Act, or the MEGA Act, introduced in January by U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., has been before the U.S. Committee on House Administration since its introduction, according to legislative records.
De León and Hansen say that the MEGA Act and the SAVE America Act are fundamentally still the SAVE Act, and all versions of the legislation must be defeated in order to protect tribal voting rights.
"The SAVE and SAVE America Acts would prevent states from accepting many Tribal IDs as valid documentation for voter registration and voting, preventing eligible Native Americans from exercising their right to vote," the attorneys said.
Because state departments of motor vehicles are generally located far from reservation lands, it can be difficult for tribal citizens to obtain state-issued identification, according to the attorneys.
For this reason, they said, many use tribal identification as their primary form of identification. But under the SAVE and SAVE America Acts, tribal identification without a location of birth would be insufficient to prove a voter registration applicant's U.S. citizenship, according to De León and Hansen.
Echoing the Navajo Nation, the attorneys said the bills would especially disenfranchise Native American elder voters who were born at home on tribal lands and lack a birth certificate. Some elders are unhoused or live in temporary housing or poor conditions and have often lost their birth certificates, they said.
Last March, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, along with 111 other groups, told members of Congress in a letter that the SAVE Act would add to the restrictive voting laws 31 states already have in place that disproportionately burden minority voters.
"As our nation commemorates the 60th anniversaries of Bloody Sunday and the Voting Rights Act, far too many communities are still excluded from participating in our democracy," said the letter from the coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Human Rights Campaign, NARF and the League of Women Voters of the United States.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Speaker Mike Johnson, both Louisiana Republicans, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, of Michigan last March called for bipartisan support of the bill, saying it's "commonsense legislation to uphold and strengthen current law to ensure only American citizens can vote in American elections."
"American citizens — and only American citizens — should decide American elections. House Republicans are determined to codify this commonsense idea with the SAVE Act which puts in place commonsense safeguards to prevent noncitizens from abusing our democratic process," they said in the statement.
--Editing by Alex Hubbard.
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