Get the Facts: Responses to most common MAGA comments

We See You. Let's Talk.

We know the comment section gets a little spirited. So we figured we'd save everyone some time and address a few things directly.

You're welcome.

💬"80% of Americans want the SAVE Act / SHIELD Act. Why don't Democrats want voter ID?"

Let's be precise: 80% of Americans support showing ID at the polls. That's not what the SAVE Act and SHIELD Act are. These bills layer on a whole new stack of documentary requirements that, for most Americans, means producing a passport or birth certificate, since government-issued driver's licenses, including REAL IDs, and military or tribal IDs don't even satisfy the requirements. That's not "voter ID." That's a paper chase. Know the difference.

💬 "Democrats only win by cheating."

Let's talk about actual, documented, convicted election fraud from the past six to seven years. (This is nowhere near an exhaustive list. It's just a sampling.) See if you can spot the common denominator.

👀 Harry Wait, a Wisconsin conservative activist and vocal proponent of the claim that the 2020 election was stolen, was convicted this week of election fraud and felony identity theft after illegally requesting absentee ballots in other people's names and having them sent to his own home. After his conviction, he told reporters he "would do it again."

👀 Austin Smith, a Republican state legislator and Turning Point Action leader in Arizona, pleaded guilty to forging more than 100 signatures on his nominating petitions, including the signature of a deceased woman, to qualify for a 2024 primary ballot.

👀 Kelly Giles, chairman of the Randall County, Texas Republican Party, pleaded guilty to attempted election fraud after falsely certifying that his nomination paperwork was legally compliant for the 2024 Republican Primary.

👀 Kim Phuong Taylor, wife of Republican Iowa congressional candidate Jeremy Taylor, was convicted of 52 counts of voter fraud for submitting dozens of fraudulent voter registrations and absentee ballots during the 2020 primary and general elections to boost her husband's campaigns.

👀 Jason Schofield, a Republican Elections Commissioner in Rensselaer County, New York, was federally charged with 12 felony counts after he and employees under his direction fraudulently requested and submitted absentee ballots on behalf of voters who never asked for them and had no idea it was happening.

👀 Alabama Republican state Rep. David Cole pleaded guilty to voter fraud after renting a 5x5 closet for $5 a month, never living there, and using it as a fake address to run for office in a district he didn't actually live in.

👀 Kimberly Zapata, former deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, was convicted after obtaining military absentee ballots using fake names and Social Security numbers, claiming she was testing the system. Sound familiar? That was Harry Wait's excuse too.

When you hear "Democrats cheat," ask yourself who keeps actually getting caught.

💬 "Democrats were the party of slavery, KKK, Jim Crow, and disenfranchisement."

True, for a long time, segregationists and white supremacists called the Democratic Party home. But here's what that argument leaves out: leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights movement didn't just fight against the old Democratic Party, they fought to change it from within. And it worked. Segregationists were pushed out. Many of them, including Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, walked right into the Republican Party and were welcomed with open arms.

The Democratic Party saw what needed to change and changed it. So the question isn't which party was guilty a century ago. The question is: who's fighting against equal rights, supporting voter suppression, and dog-whistling to white supremacists today? We know the answer. So do you.

💬 "Proving citizenship is easy."

Is it? Approximately 146 million American citizens do not have a valid passport. For context, 153 million Americans voted in the 2024 presidential election. In seven states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana, fewer than one-third of citizens have a valid passport. And your standard REAL ID driver's license? Doesn't qualify, because no state's REAL ID indicates citizenship status. "Easy" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

💬 "There are no costs to proving citizenship."

A U.S. passport costs $165. A certified birth certificate varies by state but typically runs $10 to $30, and that's if you know where you were born, your records weren't lost in a disaster, and your name hasn't changed since birth. As many as 69 million American women could not use their birth certificate alone to prove citizenship because they changed their name after marriage. Add in time off work, transportation, and office visits, and "no cost" is a fantasy. Poll taxes used to be "just a small fee" too.

💬 "There is massive voter fraud happening that needs to be addressed."

We keep hearing this. Utah performed a full citizenship review of its entire voter rolls, more than 2 million registered voters, and found exactly one confirmed instance of noncitizen registration and zero instances of noncitizen voting. In Pennsylvania, the Heritage Foundation's own data covers 30 years and more than 100 million votes cast and found only 39 cases of voter fraud, none of which changed any election outcome. The massive fraud isn't in the ballots. It's in the talking points.

💬 "If you're a legal voter, you have nothing to worry about."

Military members would be required to present documentation every time they move and re-register to vote, and could not use their military ID alone. Families who lost documents in natural disasters would have to replace those records while rebuilding their lives. Any change to a voter registration, including moving or changing a name, would require new documentation proving citizenship. So if you're a legal voter who moved, got married, survived a hurricane, or serves in the military, yes, actually, you do have something to worry about.

💬 "I'm already registered to vote, so this won't impact me."

That's what a lot of people think, and it's not quite right. Under the SAVE Act, any change to your voter registration triggers the new documentation requirements. That means if you move, even across the street, you'll need to show up in person with proof of citizenship documents to update your registration. Get married and change your name? Same thing. Divorced? Same thing. Move to a new county? Same thing. Military family relocating to a new duty station? Same thing, every single time.

Life happens. People move, get married, change their names, and update their addresses. The SAVE Act turns every one of those ordinary life events into a trip to a government office with a stack of documents in hand, just to maintain your right to vote. It's not a one-time hurdle. For millions of Americans, it becomes a recurring one.

💬 "This won't disenfranchise anyone."

When Kansas implemented a similar documentary proof of citizenship law, it prevented roughly 31,000 eligible citizens, about 12% of all applicants, from registering to vote. That's citizens. Legal Americans. Turned away. Estimates suggest the SAVE America Act could disenfranchise over 20 million American citizens nationally. "No one" is already at 31,000 in just one state. Do the math.

Want the facts? We've got them. Want to protect every legal vote? So do we. That's the whole point.