AMY GOODMAN: Voting rights advocates are expressing alarm after the Republican-led House passed a bill Wednesday that could disenfranchise millions of voters. By a vote of 218 to 213, Republicans approved the so-called SAVE America Act, which would require voters to show passports or birth certificates to register to vote or update their voter registration information. The bill also effectively eliminates online and mail voter registration.

Demetria McCain of the Legal Defense Fund responded to the vote by saying, quote, “The SAVE America Act is not about protecting our elections — it’s about disguising voter suppression techniques aimed at disenfranchising Black voters as election security,” unquote.

The SAVE America Act now heads to the Senate, where it faces some Republican opposition.

Meanwhile, shocking new details have emerged about how a prominent election denier played a key role in the FBI’s recent raid on the Fulton County election office in Georgia. An unsealed search warrant affidavit reveals the raid came after a referral from Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who tried to overturn the 2020 election. One of the debunked claims listed in the affidavit comes from a so-called citizen researcher named Joe Rossi, who claimed that the number of ballot images for Fulton County did not match the full total number of ballots cast. But the state of Georgia did a machine and hand recount of the ballots and confirmed the tally.

To talk about all of this and more, we’re joined by Ari Berman, the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine, his most recent article headlined “The GOP’s 'Show Us Your Papers' Bill Is the Latest Effort to Help Trump Take Over Elections.” He’s also the author of Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People — and the Fight to Resist It.

Ari, welcome back to Democracy Now! Start off with this latest vote in the House. The significance of — and what is — the SAVE Act?

ARI BERMAN: Good morning, Amy and Juan. Thank you for having me back on the show.

So, the SAVE America Act is a new version of the SAVE Act, which passed the House last year and then passed the House again this week. And it would be, if passed, the worst voter suppression bill ever passed by Congress, because it has sweeping new restrictions on voting. And it comes at a time when President Trump says he wants to take over the voting process and nationalize voting. And this bill would nationalize new restrictions on voting in a few different ways.

The centerpiece of the bill remains a “show your papers” requirement, meaning you need a passport or a birth certificate to register to vote. That would be extremely restrictive. Half of all Americans don’t have passports, for example. Twenty-one million Americans don’t have ready access to their citizenship documents. A much larger number of people could be affected. For example, 69 million married women took their partner’s name and have birth certificates that are different than their current last name and could be disenfranchised. So, the “show your papers” bill is really the headline.

There’s other parts of the bill, as well. They have a national voter ID requirement for the first time, which would be extremely restrictive. It would not allow student IDs or tribal IDs. It would disproportionately harm younger people and voters of color. And then, the third part of the bill would require states to hand over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, something that the DOJ has long tried to get. That means your sensitive private information would be in the hands of Kristi Noem. And that could lead to faulty voter purges based on inaccurate citizenship data.

So, the bill really combines a lot of the worst things that Republicans want to do with regards to voting, and it comes at a time when Trump appears dead set to try to interfere in the midterm elections.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But, Ari, is any of this constitutional, given the fact that the Constitution gives to the states the power to run elections?

ARI BERMAN: Well, that’s a very good question, Juan, and it would certainly be challenged in court. Trump tried to do many of these same kind of things through executive order. For example, he tried to pass an executive order last year that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. And that was blocked by courts as executive overreach. And we have a very decentralized system that makes it hard for both the president and Congress to encroach on it.

But what we’re seeing, Juan, is that the president and his allies are trying to ignore the Constitution in so many different ways. They are trying to usurp power that belongs to the states when it comes time to voting — when it relates to voting, so that they can try to take more control in order to interfere in some way or another with the midterm elections.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what are the prospects of this passing the Senate?

ARI BERMAN: Well, the good news is it’s unlikely to pass the Senate, because they aren’t able to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. It’s not even clear they would get 50 votes on a simple majority, because Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski has already spoken out about this.

I should add that lot of the bill disproportionately impacts Republican constituencies — for example, the fact that married women could be disenfranchised who have taken their partner’s name. Republican women are more likely to take their partner’s name than Democratic women. Their bill also requires you to show citizenship documentation in person at an elections office. That would effectively end online registration, mail registration, voter registration drives, and it would force people in rural areas to drive very long distances to be able to register to vote in person at an elections office. Rural areas tend to lean more red than blue. And so, in a lot of ways, this bill would disenfranchise Republican constituencies more than Democratic constituencies, and I think that is also giving some members of the Republican Senate pause.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference between requiring ID and requiring immigration status information?

ARI BERMAN: There’s a big difference. And that’s a really good point, Amy, because this is being sold as a voter ID bill. And, of course, every state requires some sort of proof of identity to be — to register to vote. But the most common way that people would show their identity is a driver’s license. Well, the requirement to show your papers is much broader than that, because it requires a passport or a birth certificate to be able to register to vote. Most people do not carry a passport or birth certificate around with them like a driver’s license. So that means that a lot more people could be affected. These documents are expensive. A passport can cost $100 or more. It takes a long time to get. Not everyone knows where their birth certificate is. Not everyone has access to their birth certificate.

So, the talking points we hear is, you need an ID to buy liquor. You need an ID to get on a plane, etc., etc. First off, those are not constitutionally protected rights. But we’re not talking about needing an ID for those things. We’re talking about needing citizenship papers, which you’ve never needed in any previous election to be able to register to vote.

And it’s all predicated on the lie that noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections. There’s absolutely no evidence that noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections. We’ve had study after study after study that have shown this. Most recently, there was an audit by Utah of its voter rolls. They looked at the 2.1 million people on their voter rolls. They didn’t find a single noncitizen who cast a ballot. So, it’s definitely a solution in search of a problem.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ari, I wanted to ask you about this situation in Fulton County, Georgia, that we mentioned earlier in the program, this FBI raid. There was a criminal referral from Kurt Olsen, who’s a temporary White House employee with the title of director of election security and integrity. Can you tell us a little bit more about Olsen?

ARI BERMAN: Yeah, Kurt Olsen is not a household name, but he was a leader of the “Stop the Steal” movement in 2020. He became active in Trump’s orbit. He tried to persuade the Justice Department to file a lawsuit before the Supreme Court overturning the election. Texas eventually filed that. That was unsuccessful. He talked to Trump numerous times on January 6th during the insurrection. He then became part of Kari Lake — Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s campaign in 2022 in Arizona. He was sanctioned by a federal court for making false claims about the election. He has been traveling around the country making false claims about the election with the likes of Mike Flynn, Mike Lindell, Steve Bannon. So, he is part of a whole crew of election deniers that have made false claims about the election, but have now been promoted to key roles in the White House.

And that’s what was so shocking about the Fulton County affidavit, was it recycled so many lies about the 2020 election that have been thoroughly debunked, in court, in Georgia, by investigators all across the country. And the fact that this stuff is still being used five years later by people at the White House to persuade the FBI and a federal — and a state judge to take 700 boxes of ballots is really astonishing. I mean, we are seeing lies pushed by election deniers and the Trump administration weaponized by law enforcement in the most harmful of ways. And I believe it’s all being used as a predicate to try to interfere in the midterm election.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is the latest on what we understand why Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, was there, perhaps overseeing this operation? At least what we know is she provided the cellphone for the FBI agents who went in and took the 700 boxes to speak directly with the president of the United States.

ARI BERMAN: Well, that was another really big question after reading the affidavit, was: Why was Tulsi Gabbard there? Because the director of national intelligence is prohibited by law from participating in domestic law enforcement operations. Her only portfolio with regards to elections would be stopping foreign interference in the elections. And the affidavit didn’t make any allegations of foreign interference in the 2020 election in Fulton County, let alone provide evidence of that. So, the affidavit, even the, quote-unquote, “evidence” that was provided, completely refuted the idea that Tulsi Gabbard should have been there.

So, the fact that she was there, the fact that she put President Trump on the phone with FBI agents, it just raises huge red flags about this entire operation. And the affidavit provided many more questions than answers about how this reached the level of a criminal inquiry and why the administration wants this information and what they’re planning to do with these 700 boxes of ballots and voting records that they’ve now seized.

AMY GOODMAN: Fascinating article in The Atlantic recently headlined ”MAGA Thinks Maduro Will Prove Trump Won in 2020.” The article quotes MyPillow founder Mike Lindell saying, quote, “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections,” unquote. Some have speculated Trump could pardon Maduro in exchange for him stating Venezuela interfered in the 2020 election, even though no evidence of that exists. Your final comments, Ari?

ARI BERMAN: That’s really a chilling possibility, because we already know that Tulsi Gabbard and her team were in Puerto Rico looking for Venezuelan evidence of interference in that election. They didn’t find any evidence of Venezuelan interference. But it wouldn’t be shocking for the Trump administration to lean on Maduro and say, “Come clean, admit that you interfered in the 2020 election, and I’ll give you a pardon.” Now, that would be a total fabrication, but we’ve seen how the president, in so many different ways, has weaponized law enforcement to meet his own political ends. And the fact is, they have concocted so many elaborate schemes about how the election was rigged, and their latest scheme seems to center around Venezuela. And they now have a lot of leverage with Venezuela, because they’re essentially running the country, and the former leader of Venezuela is within their custody. And so, this would be a total fabrication. It would be a complete lie. But it would just be another chilling signal about how far the administration intends to go, not just to relitigate their own lies about the 2020 election, but to have a pretext to try to interfere in the next election, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Ari Berman, we want to thank you so much for being with us, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine. We’ll link to your new article, “The GOP’s 'Show Us Your Papers' Bill Is the Latest Effort to Help Trump Take Over Elections.”

Coming up, Bishop William Barber is leading a 50-mile march from Wilson to Raleigh, North Carolina, to push for healthcare, immigrant rights and voting access. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Una Canción,” “A Song,” by the Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez, performing at New York’s Central Park years ago. In our next segment, we’ll be speaking to the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations.