Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) claimed that the SAVE Act would disenfranchise half of Pennsylvania voters by requiring them to show ID.
The post Fact Check: Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon Claims SAVE Act Would Disenfranchise Half of Pennsylvania Voters appeared first on Breitbart.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) claimed that the SAVE Act would disenfranchise half of Pennsylvania voters by requiring them to show ID at the ballot box.
Scanlon issued her claim during a congressional town hall this week.
“Under this SAVE Act, Real ID that shows citizenship is required,” she began. “Only five states have Real ID that shows citizenship. Pennsylvania is not one of them.”
“So remember all the harassment you had to go through to get Real ID – if you did, because only half of us have it still – you’d have to go through more to get that kind of Real ID just to register to vote,” she continued. “So, it is an extra layer that is unnecessary.”
Scanlon concluded by dismissing claims of potential voter fraud.
“Every study that’s ever been done shows that non-citizens are not voting in our elections, and so it’s another way to stir up fear, and it’s another way to keep people from voting,” she concluded. “Here in Pennsylvania, people don’t have Real ID. People don’t have passports. About half our voters would get disenfranchised if this thing were to go through.”
While the issue of voter fraud will always be subject to debate and scrutiny, Scanlon’s claim that voter ID would disenfranchise voters falls short when examining the facts. In Georgia, for instance, where similar laws were put into effect, voter turnout either went up or stayed relatively the same. During the 2022 midterms following several reforms, early voting actually tripled from 2018 and doubled from 2020, with black voters casting over 100,000 more early ballots than they did in 2018.
Just this year, Georgia voters saw a record turnout for a primary election, with reports that even Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has grown “concerned about the Democratic turnout advantage,” per WABE.
“About 1 million people turned out for early voting as polls closed Friday, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office. The previous record for early voting in a Georgia primary was about 857,000 in 2022,” noted the outlet.
“And Democrats have flipped the script on Republicans this year compared to the early voting period in the 2022 primary,” it added.
