Dear Friend,
On May 19, 1933, in my hometown of Kassel, Germany, 30,000 spectators watched and cheered as the Nazis burned books. Although this happened more than 30 years before I was born, it’s one of many ways authoritarianism deeply impacted my life and embedded in me a strong belief in democracy and the power of each and every vote.
2024 was the first presidential election in which I got to cast my vote. A newly minted U.S. citizen, I’d waited 35 years for the opportunity to make my voice heard. Admittedly, the wait was a combination of a busy schedule and complacency because, for many of those years, our democracy was humming along just fine without my vote.
That changed when white Christian Nationalists moved from the fringes of our society into positions of power. The country I had admired since childhood as a beacon of freedom was morphing into something unrecognizable, and I knew my time of sitting on the political sidelines was over: I had to get my citizenship and do my part. And so I swore an oath to this country and registered to vote.
History teaches us that democracy rarely disappears overnight. It erodes more gradually, as those in power chip away at the rights that allow ordinary people to hold them accountable. That’s why casting a ballot is far more than a civic duty to me. It’s a promise that the horrors my family witnessed in Europe will never be repeated here. And yet, this year, that promise is being tested.
Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to present documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate. Although it’s currently stalled in the Senate, there is a tremendous pressure campaign underway for senators to push it through. We can’t let that happen.
The SAVE America Act, as well as the Make Elections Great Again Act, are being promoted as necessary “election integrity” measures. But as I well know, voting by noncitizens is already illegal and has been for more than a century. And despite the far-right’s fearmongering, voter fraud is extremely rare.
Voter suppression laws won’t save our country or “fix” our elections (except in a “the fix is in” kind of way). Instead, these bills threaten to make voting exceedingly more difficult for millions of eligible Americans — especially naturalized citizens like me, married women whose names changed, young voters, military members, families impacted by natural disasters, and people without easy access to documents — forcing us all to jump through unnecessary bureaucratic hoops just to exercise our most foundational constitutional right.
Too often, authoritarians appeal to anxiety about the present and nostalgia for an idyllic past. They promise to restore something that was never lost and protect something that was never endangered, all while restricting who gets a voice in our future.
I became a citizen so I could participate in this democracy and in this country I love. Today, I’m asking you to help defend it:
History has shown us where silence and suppression leads. Let’s make sure our voices are heard instead.
Sincerely,
Martina Fern
Senior Director of Development
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