Have you heard about the SAVE Act? The so-called “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility,” or SAVE, Act is currently making its way through the Senate, and all voters should be very alarmed. If passed, this bill would effectively block millions of eligible Americans from voting.

August 6 is the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law that prohibited racial discrimination in voting. The SAVE Act threatens to erase that legacy by blocking voting access for targeted groups.

One of these groups is college students, who already face systematic barriers to voting. Blocking student voices would be a serious setback to the fight for climate action. I have seen these barriers play out both in my job last year as a campus voter outreach canvasser and personally as a college student.

As students head back to campus this fall, it’s important to understand the barriers to voting we currently face, how the SAVE Act would make the situation worse, and how we can act now to stop it from passing.

Even without the SAVE Act, eligible college students face unique hurdles to exercising their right to vote. First, students living on campus must make the choice of whether to register from their school address or their home address. Complicating this decision are the inconsistent residency requirements that each state has, which makes it even harder to understand our options. As students try to navigate unfamiliar voting policies while short on time, we also often do not have easy access to transportation to our local registrar’s office or polling location.

These are systematic problems that contribute to nationwide low student voter turnout. Polls show that only 23% of young people aged 18-29, a demographic that includes most students, voted in the 2022 election cycle.

I saw these barriers in action last fall while canvassing to get out the student vote on Duke University’s campus in North Carolina. Most students had not made a plan to vote which meant they didn’t know their voting location and weren’t aware that NC’s laws required them to bring a photo ID to the polls.

Access to polling locations

Like 74% of other universities across the country, Duke did not have a polling location on campus on election day. Without an on-campus location, students have to find their own transportation to the polls. This costs money and time, and students are often short on both. The need to travel to an off-campus polling location discourages many students who would have voted, if it was more accessible.

Photo ID requirements

Restrictive photo ID requirements for voting are a burden that states often implement. For example, in North Carolina, where I worked, there is already a history of legislative battles over whether the state requires voters to show a photo ID. In 2021, the court struck down a voter ID law after it was shown to discriminate against Black voters. But the state re-implemented the policy just two years later, in plenty of time for the 2024 general election.

In my work, I saw how photo ID requirements can be a huge barrier especially for out-of-state students. Many do not have a photo ID from the state where they are attending college, and several other states don’t even allow students’ campus ID to be used as acceptable identification. Additionally, if a student decides to register at their campus address, which is likely to change yearly, they may have to update their registration for each election cycle. These are huge deterrents to student voters, especially for many who are navigating the voting process for the first time.

Black students face even higher barriers

Students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, face especially high barriers to voting because of their unique intersection of representing high concentrations of both Black and young voters. Most HBCUs are located in states with long histories of voter suppression and stricter voting laws, specifically targeted at Black communities. HBCU students who do overcome these hurdles may find their votes have less of an impact in their communities because of systems designed to drown out their voices. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, state legislatures often gerrymender districts in and around HBCUs to dilute the voting power of their students.

This is just one piece of a larger picture of creeping restoration of racial inequality in elections. After the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the racial gap in voter turnout grew smaller. However, this trend has reversed since the 2012 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court ruling. Now, racial disparities in voter turnout are increasing, according to the Brennan Center.

The Shelby County ruling rolled back the “preclearance” clause of the Voting Rights Act, which held that states with a history of voting discrimination had to get federal approval, or preclearance, before changing their voting laws. The rollback means these states are able to pass even more restrictive voting laws, with less oversight. Now, students in these states must navigate more burdensome registration processes, which keeps many from voting. In turn, these barriers contribute to the low national student voter turnout rate.

On top of all these current barriers to voting, if Congress passes the SAVE Act, it would get worse. The SAVE Act introduces new requirements around where and how people can register to vote or update their registration.

The SAVE Act makes voting ID requirements much more strict. Under the SAVE Act, all eligible voters must unnecessarily present a passport or birth certificate to register to vote or update their current registration. Drivers licenses, state IDs, and many tribal IDs, which are all existing and established methods to prove your eligibility,  would no longer count. Additionally, if the name on their birth certificate doesn’t match their name on other documentation, voters are required to show a passport that does match. This will discourage millions of people who changed their name after marriage, adoption, or gender transition – or even just to fix typos – from voting due to the extra cost, time, and effort of updating their documents.

This also makes it much harder for low-income students, who likely operate on a tight budget, to register to vote. Since low-income college students are disproportionately also students of color, the SAVE Act will most severely block their voices from the electoral process.

The SAVE Act also requires voters to register in-person at certain locations only, essentially eliminating options to register online or by mail. As students need to either register for the first time or update their registration, they will have to find time and transportation to get to these locations. From my time canvassing students to register and vote, I know that this would place a huge barrier on most student voters.

On top of that, many states have requirements that voters register a certain number of days in advance of the election. This can impact out of state students who don’t arrive in time to register, or aren’t familiar with their school state’s deadlines. Many voters don’t decide to vote until a couple of days before the election and for many student voters, it might be too late for them to participate. The SAVE Act would only exacerbate this problem by adding extra effort to the registration process.

The SAVE Act is not the first of its kind. Similar policies have been passed on the state level, and they have been shown to deter eligible voters, especially Black voters. The SAVE Act would continue to roll back the progress the U.S. has made toward equitable voting representation since the passage of the Voting Rights Act 60 years ago. Students are among the groups who will be most impacted.

In general, college students tend to support more progressive climate policies. According to OpenSecrets, more conservative politicians tend to accept money from fossil fuel companies – and then support legislation benefiting their Big Oil donors over our communities and environment. To boost their favored candidates’ chances of winning elections, it is in fossil fuel companies’ best interests for college students to be disenfranchised.

Many young people, myself included, are afraid for our future. Studies show young people worry about the climate crisis at higher rates than older generations. Climate anxiety, exacerbated by worsening disasters and extreme weather events fueled by climate change, leaves young people feeling powerless and demoralized. This already decreases our likelihood of voting. The more SAVE Act hoops we have to jump through and money we have to pay to even get registered, the worse the problem will become.

Low-income students and students of color often come from communities disproportionally impacted by pollution. When students, especially these students, are disenfranchised, we lose the voices of those who have to live with the legacy politicians are currently leaving. By disenfranchising student voters, the SAVE Act would be another nail on our climate coffin.

Strong democracies require us all to be politically engaged. But if passed, the SAVE Act will effectively disenfranchise millions across the country, including many students.

This is an all hands on deck moment to secure our democracy and our climate future. There is still time to stop it, but we must act now. Here’s how:

• Call your senators (here’s how!) and tell them to vote NO
• Text “SAVE” to 877-877 to contact your senators and tell them to vote NO
• Complete our online action to tell the Senate: Stop the SAVE Act

Students can also go a step further and advocate for on-campus voting locations at your school.