Republicans’ Push for the SAVE America Act Could Disenfranchise Eligible Voters

Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation that would force states to quickly adopt a flurry of new restrictions around voting, making it harder for many eligible voters to cast ballots and for states to run their elections.

The legislation, known as the SAVE America Act, is backed by President Donald Trump and would require people to prove their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. It would also standardize a requirement that voters show a photo ID before casting a ballot in federal elections, among its other provisions. Many Republican lawmakers have rallied around this bill, teeing up a vote on it in the House of Representatives as soon as Wednesday.

State officials across the country say they’re concerned about the barriers the SAVE America Act could present to voters trying to register, a process that many states have tried to simplify.

“This is a politically motivated effort to reduce the number of people who are eligible to vote, because they believe that if people vote, they will lose,” William F. Galvin, the Democratic secretary of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, said about the Republican push for the bill.

Among the largest groups that voting-access advocates say could be most affected are married women who changed their name and naturalized citizens, who may not have a birth certificate or passport that matches their driver’s license.

Election officials also listed several other groups of people who could face challenges in casting a ballot because of this legislation: college students and other young voters who often sign up to vote at voter registration drives; elderly voters who prefer to mail in their ballots; the spouses or dependents of military service members who often vote from abroad; voters who were adopted; U.S. citizens living overseas and nondrivers who may struggle to obtain or pay for a passport.

A majority of states already require photo identification to vote, and those that don’t check a voter’s signature or other personal identification against existing records, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Voters must be U.S. citizens under existing federal law.

Most Democrats oppose the legislation, and have since its first iteration passed the House last year. They argue the bill is designed to make it harder for certain groups to vote, including rural, low-income and women voters.

“In my state of Ohio, where we have some of the strictest voter-ID laws, we have seen what happens,” Rep. Emilia Sykes said at a press conference Tuesday held by members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus to oppose the legislation. “The amount of voter fraud is sustained, but the amount of voter engagement decreases, and particularly amongst people of color, young folks, the disabled and guess what, women.”

Opponents also say this could complicate matters for voters in rural areas because of a requirement in the bill that applicants for mail-in voting present their citizenship documents in person to get a ballot sent to them. Acquiring documents that would qualify can cost money as well as time.

“You know who this bill punishes? It punishes Americans who don’t have a passport, which obviously, let’s connect the dots here. Those [who have passports] are often wealthier people, people with more means,” Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said Tuesday. “Are we really wanting to make it more difficult for rural Americans to vote?”

House Republicans, and a handful of conservatives in the Senate including Sens. Mike Lee and Rick Scott, are pushing for the bill because they say it prevents noncitizens from voting, even though it rarely happens.

Supporters of the legislation also echo Trump’s long-standing and baseless insistence that the 2020 election he lost to former President Joe Biden was rigged or stolen. The president has publicly attributed this loss, in part, to non-U.S. citizens casting ballots.

Voting by noncitizens is uncommon and makes up a small percentage of the total voting population, according to a survey by the Brennan Center for Justice in 2016. Across 42 jurisdictions in the U.S., with a total of 23.5 million votes cast, the national survey found only 30 alleged instances of noncitizen voting.

A study by The Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit that works with state election officials, of documented claims of noncitizens voting that ran through December 2025 found that “claims of large numbers of possible noncitizens on voter records are revised significantly downward after proper investigation and scrutiny.”

“To understand why that is so rare, all you have to do is say to yourself, ‘Do I want to risk never being able to gain citizenship and possibly be deported in order to cast one ballot?’ No. Most people are gonna say no,” Sarah Copeland Hanzas, Vermont’s secretary of state, told NOTUS.

Scott, in the Senate, argued that more restrictive voting laws in his state of Florida have not affected turnout there.

“In Florida, you have to have voter ID, have to be a citizen to vote, you have to ask for your ballot if you want a mail-in ballot every year, every cycle now to get those,” Scott told NOTUS. “People don’t complain they don’t get to vote in Florida, and we have big turnout.”

Many Republican-led states already have laws on the books that are strict on mail-in voting. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, one of the House conservatives who has long pushed for stricter voter-registration requirements, said his state is an example of how to do it right.

“Some states do it fine. Louisiana does this well. If you want a mail-in ballot, you get one, but you got to ask for it,” Higgins told NOTUS. “When you send out millions and millions of unsolicited mail-in ballots, you’re setting the stage for fraud, like you’re inviting fraud, and we want to eliminate that.”

Even if the legislation passes in the House, Republicans would need to either bypass Senate rules or get Democrats on board to get it through the upper chamber, neither of which is likely to happen.

Not even all Senate Republicans are on board. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who often breaks with Trump, said the legislation overstepped states’ constitutional authority to run their own elections.

“Election Day is fast approaching,” Murkowski said on X. “Imposing new federal requirements now, when states are deep into their preparations, would negatively impact election integrity by forcing election officials to scramble to adhere to new policies likely without the necessary resources.”

At the state level, election officials are worried about the resources and training required to implement the SAVE America Act before the midterms.

Copeland Hanzas said the resources her state would need to adhere to the changes “runs the gamut.” Those needs, she said, include funds for a public-service campaign informing voters about the changes in registration requirements, time to retrain election staff and security improvements to collect sensitive identification documents.

“We don’t change election law during the election year because it’s functionally difficult to make sure that all of those changes in procedures can be implemented in a way that doesn’t disenfranchise voters,” she said.

Nicole Hansen, legal counsel for policy at the Campaign Legal Center, told NOTUS that the SAVE America Act would require election officials to quickly relearn the rules they’re administering and put the financial burden of changing those rules on them.

“Election workers are already working on their trainings. They already know their state laws. They are already preparing for the midterms,” Hansen said. “Throwing in a new documentation requirement right now at the last minute would require a ton of additional training for election workers, election administrators, to: number one, become familiar with the new law; number two, become familiar with the specific types of ID that would be available under the law.”

And, Hansen said, giving state and local officials authority to determine whether documents are sufficient to prove citizenship could create disparities between states.

“Hanging in the background of the SAVE Act is the fact that it’s largely up to individual states and localities to enforce much of it,” Hansen said. “So that also leaves open opportunity for inequities across the country in states where officials have a history of discriminating against voters of color.”

In general, critics of the legislation warn that it would throw a wrench into the already complicated logistics of Election Day.

“Imagine on Election Day, you get up early, you try to be the first one at the polls, and only to realize there’s already 30 people in front of you,” Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten told reporters at the press conference Tuesday. “You’re trying to get to work, and the poll worker doesn’t know which form of ID is acceptable to validate the name change that’s in front of them. All those 30 people, you know, waiting behind this individual, are also going to be impacted.”