Your right to hold politicians accountable is under attack

Two hundred and fifty years ago, America’s Founders fought a revolution so the people, not kings, could choose their leaders. They built a constitution that put the power of elections in the hands of the states and the people, not kings. From the beginning, our country has moved forward, working to become a more perfect union, by expanding the right to vote, not by making it harder.

Our home state, Oregon, is leading the charge when it comes to giving every citizen a fair chance to hold powerful politicians accountable. We do that by making voting safe, secure and easy by allowing citizens to vote from home and giving them convenient options to return their paper ballots. Oregonians chose this system because they know, like we do, that when more people participate, our democracy is stronger. When citizens can hold their leaders accountable, government works better. 

But, right now, every American’s freedom to vote — our most basic right in this country — is under threat. As Oregon’s secretary of state and a member of Congress from Oregon, we are raising the alarm.  

Elections must be free, fair and secure. That is not a partisan idea; it’s a patriotic one. And any serious conversation about election integrity must be rooted in facts and respect for the Constitution. 

Today, some politicians are calling for Washington, D.C. to take over elections, even though our Founders clearly gave states that authority in the Constitution for a reason — they had just defeated a king. They knew putting too much power in one place was dangerous. Our system works because local election officials — Republicans, Democrats and independents — run elections that meet citizens in their communities where they are while following the law. Nationalizing elections would weaken that system, not strengthen it. 

Now Congress is considering the SAVE America Act, a bill that would throw voter registration in every state in the nation into chaos in the middle of a major election cycle. The bill would require Americans to show a birth certificate, passport or certificate of citizenship to register to vote. For millions of eligible voters, those documents are not easy to find, expensive to replace, or simply not possible to get. The result is predictable: lawful voters blocked from the ballot box.

And it’s not theoretical: In Kansas, policies like what’s being proposed in the SAVE Act stopped more than 30,000 American citizens from registering to vote. That is not election security — it’s voter suppression. 

Supporters claim these new barriers are needed to stop noncitizens from voting. That claim is false. Noncitizen voting is already illegal and extraordinarily rare. It has been banned under federal law for a century, and violations carry serious criminal penalties. Oregon reviewed about 61 million votes cast over 19 years and found just 38 unlawful votes — a fraction of a fraction of a percent, with no impact on any election outcome. Utah reviewed more than 2 million registrations and found one noncitizen registration and zero cases of noncitizen voting. 

The SAVE America Act would punish eligible voters, not protect elections. Millions of women who changed their names after marriage or divorce could face hurdles just to prove who they are. The bill would also force states to turn voter data over to the Department of Homeland Security without a clear plan to protect sensitive personal information. That is a serious privacy risk. 

At the same time, the bill dumps massive costs on state and local election offices and departments of motor vehicles — and it’s the American people who will have to pick up the tab. Officials would be forced to rebuild systems, retrain staff and educate voters — all while preparing for the 2026 elections. These public servants are already stretched thin, working to protect our elections amid rising threats and shrinking resources. This bill would make their jobs harder and erode public trust. 

If this bill becomes law, thousands, maybe even millions, of eligible Americans will be turned away from the ballot box simply because they lack paperwork or did not hear about new rules. That would be a betrayal of the promise our Founders fought for: a nation where the people choose their leaders. 

We all agree that only eligible citizens should vote, and that is already the law. What we should not do is build barriers that block eligible Americans from exercising their rights. 

Our elections are already secure. The real threats are underfunding, cybersecurity, and deliberate misinformation that undermines confidence in democracy. Elections are critical infrastructure. They should be invested in and protected, not upended by fake conspiracy-driven chaos. 

We should be strengthening democracy, not weakening it. Supporting election officials, not tying their hands. Expanding access, not shrinking it. And learning from states like Oregon that have shown you can run elections that are both secure and accessible. 

At a moment when democracy is under attack from foreign adversaries and politicians who are afraid they’ll lose if the American people actually get a fair say, we face a simple choice: protect the right to vote, or put it at risk. The Founders fought for our freedom to choose our leaders. It is our responsibility to defend that freedom, for this generation and the next.

Suzanne Bonamici represents Oregon’s 1st District and Tobias Read is Oregon’s 30th secretary of state.

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