Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) responded Sunday to the GOP’s push for national voter ID laws, calling it a “solution in search of a problem.”
“It’s a solution in search of a problem in one big way,” Ivey told host Chris Stirewalt on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday.”
The House is set to vote this upcoming week on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which proposes requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and valid identification to cast a ballot.
The act states that proof of citizenship can come in the form of a valid passport; birth certificate; hospital record; a photo ID issued by a federal, state or tribal authority; or a military ID card together with a military record of service.
Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of ID at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The remaining 14 states and Washington, D.C., use other methods to verify a voter’s identity, including signature checks.
More than 8 in 10 Americans, including more than 7 in 10 Democrats, support requiring all individuals to show government-issued photo ID to vote, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center last August.
Earlier Sunday, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) told Stirewalt that the SAVE Act is “built on commonsense principles that the American people support.”
But Ivey said that the GOP lacks credibility on election-related issues in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, which President Trump falsely claimed he won and alleged was rife with voter fraud in states that former President Biden captured, including Georgia and Pennsylvania.
“They still haven’t established that [the SAVE Act] would address any fraud that’s out there, because guess what? They’ve never demonstrated any kind of fraud in the electoral system. … If they really want to be credible on this, they need to make sure they’re doing everything they can to move away from the lies about 2020,” the Maryland Democrat added of his GOP colleagues.
