ConstitutionalDefenders.org

Upholding Liberty through Digital Vigilance

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS: 21+ million Americans lose voting rights while courts lose power to stop government lawbreaking - democracy's perfect storm

America's Perfect Storm

How Voter Suppression Laws + Judicial Nullification = Democratic Death

21M+
Americans Losing Voting Rights
ZERO
Court Remedies Available
215-214
H.R.1 House Vote Margin

BREAKING: Congress Passes Legislation That Could Eliminate Voting Rights Enforcement

In an unprecedented assault on American democracy, two pieces of legislation working in tandem threaten to eliminate both voting rights and the courts' power to protect them. H.R. 1 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" passed the House 215-214 on May 22, 2025, containing provisions that strip federal courts of their constitutional enforcement power, while the SAVE Act would disenfranchise over 21 million eligible voters.

SAVE Act

Mass Disenfranchisement

H.R.1 Section 70302

Judicial Nullification

Perfect Storm

Democracy Dies

🚨 The Constitutional Crisis Unfolding in Real Time

The terrifying synergy becomes clear: H.R. 1 eliminates the courts' power to stop voter suppression, while the SAVE Act implements the most extreme voter suppression in modern American history.

How The Perfect Storm Works:

  1. SAVE Act disenfranchises millions through impossible documentation requirements
  2. Voting rights groups sue to protect disenfranchised citizens
  3. Federal courts issue injunctions ordering states to allow eligible voters to register
  4. H.R. 1 Section 70302 kicks in - courts cannot enforce their own orders
  5. States ignore judicial rulings with complete impunity
  6. 21+ million Americans lose voting rights with no legal recourse

⚖️ Constitutional Scholar Warnings: "Probably Unconstitutional"

"Probably unconstitutional... without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored."

— Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Scholar

"Our entire democracy is now at risk due to radical changes to core electoral procedures."

— 100+ Political Scientists from Harvard, Stanford, Cornell

"Strikes at the very core of judicial authority that is granted in our Constitution."

— 21 Members of Congress

🔥 H.R.1 Eliminates Courts' Power to Stop Government Lawbreaking

Buried within H.R. 1's 2,000+ pages, Section 70302 contains language that constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky calls "probably unconstitutional" - a provision that strips federal courts of their most fundamental enforcement tool:

H.R.1 Section 70302:

What this means in plain English:

When federal courts order the government to stop violating citizens' rights - including voting rights - the government can simply ignore those orders. Courts lose their power to enforce compliance through contempt citations, rendering judicial protection meaningless.

📊 The SAVE Act: Mass Disenfranchisement by Design

The SAVE Act - which passed the House 220-208 in April 2025 - would require 146 million Americans who lack passports to provide citizenship documentation to register or re-register to vote.

21.3M
Eligible citizens lack required documents
— Brennan Center for Justice
69M
Married women lack matching birth certificates
60M
Rural voters must travel hours to register
8M
Americans use online registration (eliminated)

📚 The Historical Parallel: Jim Crow 2.0 for the Digital Age

The current assault employs the same strategic framework used to disenfranchise Black Americans after Reconstruction, but with surgical precision enabled by modern technology:

Then:

Poll taxes of $1-$2 reduced Black turnout by 50%

Now:

Document fees and travel costs create similar barriers for 21+ million Americans

Then:

Literacy tests with impossible 68-question constitutional quizzes

Now:

Signature matching and exact-name requirements with algorithmic precision

Then:

Grandfather clauses excluded those whose ancestors couldn't vote before Civil War

Now:

Database purges target naturalized citizens and "foreign-sounding" names at higher rates

The Key Difference:

Jim Crow suppression was eventually challenged in federal courts. H.R. 1 eliminates that possibility entirely.

🕵️ The Fraud Justification: Phantom Threats, Real Disenfranchisement

The data destroys claims of widespread fraud requiring these extreme measures:

68
Cases of non-citizen voting since 1980s (Heritage Foundation)
Out of billions of ballots cast
9
Non-citizens who voted in Georgia 2022
Out of 8.2 million voters (0.0002% rate)
475
Potential fraud cases in 6 battleground states 2020
Out of 25+ million votes

Meanwhile, Mass Purges Based on False Premises:

19 million voters removed from rolls between 2020-2022 - a 21% increase from previous cycles. Alabama's "non-citizen" investigation found at least 2,074 eligible voters incorrectly targeted while identifying only 4-10 actual non-citizens.

The purge rate exceeds the fraud rate by a factor of 1,000 to 1.

EMERGENCY ACTION REQUIRED

The SAVE Act stalls in Senate Rules Committee with only 1% chance of passage according to GovTrack. Every call matters in the 53-47 Republican-controlled chamber.

Call Your Senators NOW

60 votes needed to overcome Democratic opposition

Democracy Under Attack

11
Point decline in Freedom House democracy score
83/100
US democracy score (same as Romania)
96
Active voting rights lawsuits across 26 states

Support Legal Challenges

Organizations fighting these restrictions while they still can:

H.R.1 Section 112209 specifically targets these groups for elimination

Timeline of Democratic Destruction

Immediate (if both laws pass)

  • 21+ million Americans lose voting rights through SAVE Act requirements
  • Hundreds of existing court orders protecting voters become unenforceable
  • States can ignore federal judicial rulings with complete impunity
  • Voting rights organizations face "terrorist" designations and dissolution

Within 90 Days

  • Treasury begins targeting nonprofits challenging voter suppression
  • Oil and gas projects proceed without environmental law compliance
  • State AI regulations become void nationwide

Within 1 Year

  • Complete breakdown of federal court authority over executive branch
  • Mass voter registration cancellations as document requirements take effect
  • Elimination of online registration systems serving 42 states

The Choice Before Us: Democracy or Authoritarianism

We face the starkest choice in American history: Allow the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions through procedural manipulation, or mobilize the largest pro-democracy movement since the 1960s to preserve constitutional government.

H.R.1 House Vote:

215-214

One vote margin

SAVE Act Needs:

60 Votes

In the Senate