By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act, also known as the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which is more likely to hurt than help Republicans. The party could have learned from Wisconsin voters in the April 1 special election that Musk tried to win.

First of all, it would put the burden of proof on the individual to demonstrate that he or she is an American citizen. Even REAL ID’s, drivers’ licenses and military IDs won’t work. You pretty much have to use a birth certificate or passport to vote. As the Center for American Progress reveals roughly 146 million American citizens do not possess a valid passport, almost as many as those who voted in the last election, according to the Center for American Progress.

That didn’t stop the Republicans from plowing on through. Perhaps they were buoyed by their only real win during the early special elections: a Wisconsin referendum.

The party lost a key special election in Pennsylvania, and Florida races that Trump won by 30 percentage points or more managed only to win by a third of that margin. Louisiana’s GOP Governor received setbacks in his referenda. And Elon Musk’s money couldn’t stop Democratic candidate Susan Crawford from winning a seat on the state’s Supreme Court, a pivotal race, according to Nomia Iqbal and Max Matza with the BBC.

But even as Democrats were celebrating Crawford and other Dairy State wins, Republicans were pleased to see a Voter ID law enshrined in the state’s constitution, a measure that Crawford actually opposed, as the BBC reported.

According to Henry Redman with the Wisconsin Examiner, “the amendment was approved by 25 points.” He adds “During debate over the law, Republican lawmakers discussed its potential to help the party win elections by suppressing the vote of minority and college-aged people who tend to vote for Democrats.”

By the way, if you want to reach out to minorities and college students, making it harder for them to vote won’t help win them over.

Moreover, Republicans ignored criticism that the SAVE Act would disenfranchise women who change their name from their birth certificate, and women tend to prefer Democrats, right? Or they assumed that their voters would be richer, and more likely to afford passports, right?

But evidence shows that Republican women are more likely to take their husbands’ names, not Democratic women. Therefore, this will haunt the GOP. Moreover, Democrats are much more likely to own a passport than Republican Party supporters. In fact, the Center for American Progress argues “High rates of passport ownership are overwhelmingly concentrated in blue states, while low rates are concentrated in red states.”

In Wisconsin, the voters enshrined a law that allows those with Wisconsin drivers’ licenses, state IDs, military IDs, some student IDs and passports to vote. That seems to be the logical way to make voting work for a large number of people., rather than randomly target a group, or guess that your policy will hurt another set of supporters, instead of your own. Hopefully, the Senate or Supreme Court can “SAVE” House Republicans by striking it down.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.