From Reconstruction to the SAVE Act

Dr. Julianne Malveaux draws parallels between Frederick Douglass's self-determined identity despite lacking birth documentation as an enslaved person and current debates over voting requirements. She argues that the SAVE Act, which would mandate documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration, echoes historical voter suppression tactics like literacy tests and poll taxes used after Reconstruction to exclude Black Americans from political participation. The author contends that documentation requirements disproportionately burden seniors, low-income individuals, and women whose names have changed, while actual noncitizen voting remains extremely rare.