Common Cause is urging every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to vote “no” when the “SAVE” Act is expected to be brought to the floor later this week. The letter flags the legislation as a solution in search of a problem and stresses that the proposed “solution” would actually deny the right to vote to millions of Americans. Common Cause plans to key-vote this legislation in its Democracy Scorecard, which is sent to its more than 1.5 million members, as well as state and national press.

The letter emphasizes that noncitizen voting is already illegal at the federal level and is not allowed at the state level anywhere in the country. In fact, all voters are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering to vote in federal elections.

“Every American expects and deserves an equal voice in our government and a say in how their tax dollars are spent – and to intentionally erect hurdles like the SAVE Act to determine who votes and who doesn’t is unconscionable,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, President and CEO of Common Cause. “Millions of Americans would be stripped of their right to vote by this proposed legislation – particularly voters of color, women, and poorer and older Americans. And it has been cynically introduced to ‘address’ a problem that doesn’t exist and is already illegal.”

The letter cites a range of cross-ideological studies — from the Cato Institute to the Heritage Foundation to the Brennan Center – that all found voting by non-citizens to be extremely rare.

Common Cause emphasizes that the proposed requirement of documentary proof of citizenship in order to vote would disenfranchise millions of Republican, Democratic, and independent voters who do not have passports, birth certificates, or other forms of identification required under the SAVE Act.

The letter encourages the House of Representatives to focus instead on pro-voter bills like the Freedom to Vote Act and John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

To read the full letter, click here.