SANTA CRUZ >> Santa Cruz County’s top elections official has issued a stark public warning about legislation brewing in Washington that she says could, if passed into law, end up disenfranchising eligible local voters and put up barriers to the democratic process.

County Clerk Tricia Webber urged the Board of Supervisors at its meeting Tuesday to join her in opposing a pair of identical bills currently moving through Congress known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act. She also warned of negative consequences resulting from an executive order issued last month by President Donald Trump titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” that could upend long-established voting processes and standards.

While proponents of the legislation, sponsored by Republicans in both chambers of Congress, and the president’s order say both are meant to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote, Webber said the pervasiveness of the issue is overblown and the bill is more likely to undermine the ability of local voters to easily cast their ballots.

Webber said that “many studies have shown that there is not widespread fraud for registration or voting” and that severe legal penalties already exist for those that partake in it.

According to a report from Webber, the SAVE Act, or H.R. 22 in the House and S128 in the Senate, seeks to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of a United States citizenship at the time of registration. What’s more, that proof of citizenship — a passport or birth or naturalization certificate, for example — must also match a voter’s proof of identity, such as a driver’s license.

Additionally, the law would require all voter registration or updates to occur in-person while eliminating online, mail-in and Department of Motor Vehicles registrations as well as address updates through the U.S. Postal Service.

According to Webber, there were 45,390 voter registrations across Santa Cruz County last year. In terms of methods used to register or update voting information, 26,755 used the DMV, 2,739 used the mail, 385 utilized military or overseas services, 2,624 used the postal service to change their address and 7,696 were online. Only 5,576 residents used in-person services.

Among the groups of local voters that could face disenfranchisement from these rules are college students, people who take their partner’s last name through marriage, rural residents, military personnel, transgender individuals, people experiencing homelessness and disaster survivors that have lost access to personal documents.

“I think it’s appalling what the federal administration is attempting to do here,” said 3rd District Supervisor Justin Cummings. “It really is going to negatively impact many people throughout the country. Everyone from Republicans, Democrats, non-party preference. I mean this is really going to have serious negative consequences on people’s ability to vote.”

All supervisors joined Cummings by voting to oppose the federal bills while agreeing to send letters expressing as much to the county’s congressional representatives.

In the letter, Webber called the legislation an “unfunded mandate” because local jurisdictions and voters end up footing the bill.

“Election offices will not receive federal or state funding to implement these new changes or perform outreach to voters in order to educate them on the new process,” the letter reads. “Voters will have to take time off from work to obtain the necessary documentation and come in person to register to vote, as well as spend funds to get the necessary documentation, drive to and from their home to the elections office at least once every time there is a change to their registration.”

The president’s executive order comes with its own set of troubling directives, Webber added. While California considers ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day and received within seven days of the election as timely, the order disallows ballots received after election day. It also authorizes a federal review of voter registration lists by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies.

The order, which was signed March 25, would have gone into effect 30 days later, said Webber, but California and 17 other states filed a lawsuit against the directive that has arrested its implementation for now.

“This move by Congress is just another effort to disenfranchise people; to take the voice away from folks here in our community,” said 5th District Supervisor Monica Martinez. “I know we’re committed to doing anything we can at the local level to ensure people have the right to vote.”

In a media release shared Monday, Sen. Alex Padilla, a former California secretary of state, called Trump’s order “anti-voter” and stressed that voting by noncitizens is already a federal crime and is incredibly rare. According to Padilla’s office, a review of the 2016 general election found only 0.0001% of votes came from improper noncitizen voting among jurisdictions that were reviewed. Additionally, a recent analysis of data from the Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank — identified only 68 such cases over the past four decades.

Moreover, Padilla wrote, 12% of Americans move each year and would have to update their address in person. Another 69 million married women have legal names that differ from their birth certificates.

“Put plainly, state and local election officials should be aware that Congress is rapidly moving legislation to disenfranchise voters and disrupt election administration based on the fiction of noncitizen voting,” wrote Padilla in a letter he sent to public officials across the country.

Webber said a vote on the bill in the House is likely imminent, and the assumption is that it’s going to pass. It will then move to the Senate where the committee and debate process will start over. If it clears a vote by the Senate, it will head to the president’s desk for signature.