The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (also called the SAVE Act or SAVE America Act) is a Federal bill that would fundamentally change how Americans register to vote. It has passed the House of Representatives multiple times since 2024, including most recently in February 2026, and is being debated in the Senate this week. Some of you have asked me what is wrong with this bill. Well, here it is.
It is already the law that only United States citizens can vote in Federal elections. It is a felony for a non-citizen to vote and is already being enforced, carrying serious penalties, fines, imprisonment, and deportation. What the SAVE Act does is add a new requirement on top of a verification system that is already in place and working. So, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The changes are not to ensure that the illegals cannot vote. That is already the law. It is a path to making voting harder. Every American citizen, including those who are already registered, would need to appear in person at the election office with qualifying documents. A standard driver’s license alone will not qualify in most states. An ID alone does not qualify. A military ID alone does not qualify. A tribal ID alone does not qualify. There are only twelve states and the District of Columbia, with few exceptions that will allow voting without any documentation under certain circumstances, and they are California, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Online voter registration would be upended or eliminated. Mail registration would end entirely.
For most Americans, qualifying requires at least a valid United States passport or passport card, a certified birth certificate paired with a photo ID, a naturalization certificate, or a Consular Report of Birth Abroad. If your name does not match across those documents, additional paperwork, such as a marriage certificate, would also be required.
This does not apply to new voters, but any time a voter updates their registration, including after moving, changing their name, or switching political parties. Millions of already-registered Americans would need to comply, not just people registering for the first time. This affects more people than you think. For one, married women. Millions of married women do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name. Under the SAVE Act, they would have to present both a birth certificate and a marriage certificate to prove their identity.
People who live in rural areas would have to drive a considerable distance to an election office. In Alaska, rural voters would have to drive 4 to 5 hours to the nearest election office, and voters in Hawaii would have to fly. This places a burden on the people who work, those without reliable transportation, or those with a disability.
Voters under the age of 30 years do not have ready access to qualifying documents. Voter registration drives on college campuses and at community events like Mule Day would not ordinarily have these documents in their possession. College students mostly depend on mail-in forms. This same circumstance can be a problem for members of our military and Americans who are out of the country.
The Americans who will be hit the hardest are low-income Americans who do not have the financial means to get a passport or the time from their employment to go to the election office. Also, people of color and Native Americans do not have ready access to proof of citizenship. Many older Black Americans who were born during the civil rights era were never issued a birth certificate.
Transgender Americans in states with existing ID laws have already been affected, lacking their ID to correctly reflect their name or gender. This adds another layer of barriers that already exist.
This will also bring problems to the election office. An elected official who registers voters without the current documents can face criminal charges even if that voter is a legitimate American citizen. Not every election office has the means to verify the authenticity of a birth certificate or passports.
On March 18, 2025, the Democrats in the Senate defeated the SAVE Bill with a 52 to 47 vote. They needed 60 votes to pass the bill. The Democrats are not against a picture ID to vote. It is the added documents that they are objecting to that make it harder for a person to register to vote and even harder for a registered voter to vote if they do not have access to these documents.
Lynda Kirkpatrick