Voting-rights advocates and Democratic officials have already made clear the massive threat the SAVE Act poses to access to the ballot in the here and now, warning that it could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. But in interviews with Democracy Docket, historians and voting experts sought to put the SAVE Act in historical context — and could point to no close parallels.
“There’s never been an attack on voting rights out of Congress like this,” said Alexander Keyssar, a professor of History and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a leading historian of voting rights. “It’s always been the federal government trying to keep states in check on voting rights, for the most part.”
Sean Wilentz, a professor of American History at Princeton University, was even blunter.
“It’s the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history,” Wilentz said. “This is an attempt to destroy American democracy as we know it.”