Voting is a sacred right and responsibility for all citizens in our democracy. When we vote, we participate in democracy. We choose to work through our differences because we share a common commitment to the people’s collective right to self-determination.
“If you don’t have a choice, you don’t have a democracy. And if you don’t have access to voting, you don’t have a choice,” noted David Hadley, retired professor of political science, who specialized in American government and political behavior.
Hadley not only served 43 years at Wabash College, one of the longest tenures of the institution, he chaired the Indiana State Ethics Commission from 1995 to 1998 and again from 2005 to 2006; chaired the Montgomery County Democratic Party from 2001 to 2007; served as a precinct committeeman for 12 years; and served on the South Montgomery School Board for eight years, six as its president, which Wabash News noted at his retirement in 2012.
Hadley remains active in voter education. Recently, he’s been educating local citizens on how to make sense of the SAVE Act and an April 2025 Presidential Executive Order that would constrict voters’ access, along with local efforts to return to over three dozen precincts and hand-marking and counting of ballots, which are expensive and more error-prone proposals.
The SAVE Act, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2025, would require voters to present citizenship documents like passports or birth certificates to register—a policy that could block 21 million Americans lacking ready access to these papers, according to both Hadley and the Brennan Center for Justice.
This disproportionately impacts certain Americans, including 69 million U.S. women who took their spouses’ last name and 4 million men whose birth certificates don’t match their current legal names. - Specifically, this affects those without a passport or Real ID. Only about 50% of Americans have a passport.
This seemingly benign or well-intentioned requirement impacts individuals with tight budgets. It costs work hours to visit government offices for the necessary documents, and there are fees. Not only will working adults take on more burden, but younger voters and communities of color will also. Some libertarians who don’t hold passports or have ready access to their birth certificates, or who object to the Real ID because it seems like a national ID, are among those.
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The bill has no clear plan for how localities should deal with its new requirements. It is likely to eliminate online and mail voter registration, forcing in-person visits to government offices— not only a hurdle for rural residents, disabled voters, and those with inflexible work schedules - but also on the offices themselves. They’ll have to decide who is certified and train those individuals who can verify documents.
This raises real questions. Will the BMV have to train staff? What happens to local LWV, church, and other volunteer-based voter registration drives? Can they put forward staff to be trained? Will those volunteers have to be certified? How will they verify the documents? Or, will this force county clerks to staff up, train up and address the bottlenecks? They already handle the records like birth and marriage certificate requests. Who will pay for this training? What systems will support the verification and documentation?
While proponents claim the SAVE Act prevents noncitizen voting, federal and state laws already criminalize this, and proven cases of noncitizen voting remain exceptionally rare, Hadley noted.
Trump’s executive order mirrors the SAVE Act’s goals, said Hadley, but adds sweeping new powers, including decertifying voting machines used in 39 states unless they meet new federal standards, which no current systems satisfy. Again, this is a costly initiative that burdens the states. Its exact costs are unknown, but not piddly. It would require military and overseas voters to submit citizenship documents and prove state eligibility, creating logistical nightmares for service members and public servants, among others. And, it grants DOGE and the Department of Homeland Security unfettered access to voters’ data, a potential invasion of privacy.
On both the right and left, legal experts condemn the order as unconstitutional. Walter Olson, of the right-leaning CATO Institute, writes of this as executive overreach into states’ rights. The Brennan Center, which some consider more left-leaning, notes that the president has no authority to regulate elections. Its experts are spot on. The Constitution reserves that power for Congress and states under the Elections Clause, which states that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.”
“Okay, so Congress can pass legislation that, at least with regard to choosing senators and representatives, can alter what the states or what a state does,” said Hadley. “This is where the SAVE Act fits in. I mean, this is Congress saying, ‘Okay, we're going to impose some different sets of requirements or additional requirements on registration to vote in federal elections.’”
Federal courts temporarily blocked the EO’s “show your papers” requirement – requiring citizens to show their passport or similar document when registering to vote – in April 2025, with lawsuits ongoing.
The pressure to return to paper ballots and restore 27 precincts is a move framed as anti-fraud, but there are valid reasons to object. Paper systems increase administrative burdens and errors – people are more likely to make counting errors than machines – requiring the hiring of more personnel to ensure validity.
Together, these policies threaten to overload election workers with bureaucratic hurdles, exacerbating staffing crises while also baselessly alleging systemic fraud and eroding the access to the right and responsibility to vote. The question is, why?
As noted earlier, competitive elections depend on “offer[ing] a choice.” The SAVE Act and the executive order invert this principle, privileging exclusion over participation. In a democracy, election policies should empower citizens—not invent barriers, Hadley noted.