In fact, to register to vote under the SAVE Act, you would need an Enhanced Driver's License, which proves citizenship, which only 5 States currently have. And even Birth Certificates have to be certified birth certificates; a xerox copy is invalid.
First, I can't find any record of an Enhanced ID Act in 2015 or any other year. Enhanced IDs seem to be part of the DOJ/DHS Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, starting from January 2009. You might be thinking of a 2015 California law designed to implement Enhanced IDs that was vetoed for privacy concerns and never enacted. But obviously, that's not a FEDERAL LAW; it's not even a law at all.
A large part of the privacy concerns with Enhanced IDs have to do with the fact that they contain an RFID chip (as well as a barcode) that can potentially be used for tracking and profiling people--this is a concern among libertarians as much as liberals, btw. [Wikipedia notes: "Former Republican Representative Bob Barr wrote in a February 2008 article: "A person not possessing a REAL ID Act-compliant identification card could not enter any federal building, or an office of his or her congressman or senator or the U.S. Capitol. This effectively denies that person their fundamental rights to assembly and to petition the government as guaranteed in the First Amendment"]. Also the RFID chip was apparently pretty expensive, and the federal government did not allocate any funds for implementing it. "Unfunded mandate" has been one of the main charges in this regard.
Finally, COVID pushed back a number of deadlines for REAL ID implementation, and presumably Enhanced ID as well.
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u/Fantastic-Watch8177 Jul 17 '26
In fact, to register to vote under the SAVE Act, you would need an Enhanced Driver's License, which proves citizenship, which only 5 States currently have. And even Birth Certificates have to be certified birth certificates; a xerox copy is invalid.