Beth Schultz is a retired public school educator and administrator. She lives in Westbrook.

I take issue with Sharon Bemis’ assertion that Sen. Susan Collins is exercising common-sense leadership by voting in favor of the SAVE America Act (“Susan Collins has taken a bold stand for secure elections,” April 8).

The op-ed does not offer any evidence that our elections are not secure or there is a problem with non-citizens voting because there isn’t any. The current federal voter registration form asks people to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S citizens and are eligible to vote. A license number, state ID number or Social Security number are already required. If you were a non-citizen, would you take that risk? It defies common sense that an undocumented person would.

So, what problem needs to be solved by making it harder for citizens to vote? Does this sound like common sense to you? Are Americans concerned about election integrity? According to a New York Times/Siena poll, zero percent of voters said election integrity was a problem Americans are more concerned about the economy, immigration/immigration enforcement and threats to our democracy than the false issue of election integrity.

According to the op-ed, the SAVE Act “does not require anything of currently registered voters.” However, every time someone moves or has a name change, they are required to present documentation with a passport or birth certificate. There is evidence that 21 million citizens lack the access to the necessary documentation.

In addition, there was no mention that the SAVE Act would require states to turn over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security in order to compare its own citizenship data with each state’s rolls. Why? Is the federal government setting the stage for interference in future elections?

Currently both Republican and Democratic states are pushing back against the demands from the Department of Defense to turn over election-related records and data. There are legitimate concerns about the misuse of private data of voters, which includes driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Clearly this demand violates the fundamental principle in the Constitution that the states, not the federal government, run elections.

Finally, does it make sense to advocate for voter ID legislation when Maine voters defeated that proposal last November? Proponents of that legislation blame its defeat on “politically motivated rewriting of the ballot language by a partisan secretary of state.” Let’s be clear here. The secretary of state used the precise language from the legislation, so voters would know the facts. That’s not disinformation.

I do agree with Bemis’ faith in Maine’s values of fairness, accountability and faith in our
neighbors. Instead, that is why the majority of Mainers voted “No” on voter ID. Mainers believe it is fair to continue to allow all registered voters to cast absentee ballots. Mainers believe their town and city clerks can run transparent elections. Mainers believe their neighbors will accurately identify themselves at the polls.

Like other common-sense leaders before him, it was LBJ who said after the passage of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, which expanded the right to vote, “There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us.” Instead of making it more difficult for Americans to vote, let’s work toward making sure more people get to the polls, have access to absentee voting, overcome apathy and view their right to vote as a means to protect our precious democracy.