Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer has repeatedly claimed that the SAVE America Act that makes voter ID mandatory is “Jim Crow 2.0.” PolitiFact doesn’t find that outrageous smear worth a “fact check,” just as it failed to check when President Biden repeatedly asserted it. It should be blatantly obvious that the Republicans aren’t trying to reinstall segregation and deny the vote to all black people.
On Thursday, Louis Jacobson nitpicked a different mathematical claim by Schumer:
The SAVE America Act “would force Americans to register (to vote) only in person, something only 5% of Americans do today.”
That was rated “Half True,’ because the SAVE Act does require registration in person, but in 2024, anywhere from 11 to 42 percent of voters registered in person, “depending on how many registrations stemmed from in-person visits to motor vehicle agencies, a data point that is not being collected.” If they were checking a Republican, it would probably be tagged “Mostly False.”
But the point here is the curious way PolitiFact chooses what to check, and who is checked. Schumer hasn’t been found “Mostly False” or worse since 2021. Since then, including the new one, he has two “Half Trues” and four “Mostly Trues.” Last month, I noted PolitiFact’s Amy Sherman put together an article attacking Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), asking “Does the US have stricter ID rules for buying beer than voting?” This one didn’t have a “Truth-O-Meter” rating, but Amy Sherman argued “Why the beer vs ballots comparison falls short,”
On Friday, PolitiFact awarded a True to Sen. Elizabeth Warren for her March 3 statement: “In the modern era, no American president has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump.”
Ohio University student Zoe Weyand does appear to be correct on this: Trump has ordered strikes on ten different countries. They suggested the “modern era” started with George W. Bush. But why are we only locating the True statements? Like Schumer, Warren hasn’t been rated on the False side for a long time — since 2020. Since then, including the new one, Warren has two “Half Trues” and three “Trues.”
As of March 20, which is 79 days into 2026, PolitiFact hasn’t flagged Democrat politicians or officials with a single “Truth-O-Meter” rating on the False side — “Mostly False,” “False,” or “Pants On Fire.” There are eight rated items: one “True,” four “Mostly Trues,” and three “Half Trues.”
PS: Here’s Schumer on Wednesday, boasting he’s called this bill “Jim Crow 2.0” over and over again. Think of how many claims here could be “fact checked.”
Schumer on Wednesday: “So I have called this [SAVE] Act, over and over again, JIM CROW 2.0 and they hate it. I’ve gotten 50 million right-wing attacks on my email ’cause I said it.
And you know why they attack it? Cause they know it’s the truth. It is JIM CROW 2.0, but it’s… pic.twitter.com/uOzD29CNSC
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) March 20, 2026
