• The House passed the SAVE America Act 218-213 on Wednesday, with Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas the only Democrat to vote yes
• The bill requires documentary proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote, but faces a steep climb in the Senate where even some Republicans oppose it
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski became the first GOP senator to break with the party, noting Republicans unanimously opposed federal election mandates when Democrats proposed them in 2021

WASHINGTON, DC (TDR) — The House on Wednesday passed the SAVE America Act in a 218-213 vote, advancing the most restrictive federal voting legislation in modern history to a Senate where its prospects are complicated by an unlikely obstacle: Republican senators who remember arguing the exact opposite position four years ago.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — to register to vote in federal elections, mandate photo ID at the ballot box, and direct states to regularly purge voter rolls using Department of Homeland Security databases. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas was the lone Democrat to support the measure.

“Ensuring the integrity of elections is an essential issue, it’s essential to maintaining our Constitutional Republic, and everybody in this country seems to understand this.”

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That was House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has championed the legislation as a cornerstone of the GOP’s election agenda. President Donald Trump has pushed aggressively for the bill, telling supporters the country “won’t have a country any longer” if it fails to pass.

SAVE America Act Requirements: What the Bill Actually Does

The 32-page legislation would fundamentally reshape how Americans register and vote in federal elections across all 50 states. The key provisions go significantly beyond the voter ID concept that polls well with Americans — an October 2024 Gallup poll found 83% support for proof of citizenship when registering, and a Pew Research survey found 83% favor government-issued photo ID for voting.

But the bill’s mechanics reach further than those polling questions suggest. Under the SAVE America Act, voters registering by mail would need to present citizenship documents in person at an election office — a requirement that, according to the Center for American Progress, could force some voters in Alaska and Hawaii to fly to reach their nearest office. The legislation would also effectively curtail automatic voter registration, severely limit online registration and restrict voter registration drives that add hundreds of thousands of citizens to the rolls each cycle.

The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that more than 21 million American citizens lack ready access to the documents required by the bill. Roughly half of Americans do not have a passport. Millions lack easy access to a paper copy of their birth certificate.

“This is making Americans have to prove that they are Americans. In order to exercise fundamental constitutional rights, they have to show their papers.”

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That assessment came from Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center. The organization’s analysis found that the documentation gap disproportionately affects voters of color — while about 8% of white citizens lack readily available citizenship documents, the figure rises to nearly 11% among Americans of color.

An additional wrinkle affects tens of millions of Americans whose names have changed. An estimated 69 million women and 4 million men have a last name that does not match their birth certificate, typically because of marriage. The legislation could create significant hurdles for these voters to register unless they obtain updated documentation.

The Noncitizen Voting Question: What the Data Shows

Republicans have framed the bill as essential to preventing noncitizens from casting ballots — a claim that President Trump has repeated since his unfounded accusations of rigged elections following his 2020 loss. But the evidence assembled by Republican and Democratic election officials alike tells a different story.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections has been illegal for more than a century and carries penalties including fines, imprisonment and deportation. The Bipartisan Policy Center found just 77 documented cases over a 24-year period. State-level reviews have consistently confirmed the problem’s rarity:

Utah officials found one noncitizen accidentally registered out of more than 2 million voters. Idaho administrators identified 36 “likely” noncitizens. Georgia uncovered just 24 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters in 2024. Louisiana’s Republican secretary of state found up to 79 possible noncitizen votes cast over 40 years — out of an estimated 74 million total votes.

“I want to be clear: Noncitizens illegally registering or voting is not a systemic problem in Louisiana.”

That was Louisiana Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, whose own investigation confirmed the consensus. Even the libertarian Cato Institute, funded by the Koch network, has concluded that noncitizens do not illegally vote in detectable numbers.

The Contradiction: States’ Rights Then and Federal Mandates Now

The most politically significant fault line in the SAVE America Act debate runs through the Republican Party itself — and it centers on a contradiction that Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska made explicit this week when she became the first Senate Republican to oppose the bill.

“When Democrats attempted to advance sweeping election reform legislation in 2021, Republicans were unanimous in opposition because it would have federalized elections, something we have long opposed. Now, I’m seeing proposals such as the SAVE Act and MEGA that would effectively do just that.”

She added that “one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington, D.C., seldom work in places like Alaska” and warned that imposing federal requirements months before the 2026 midterms would force election officials to scramble without adequate resources.

Her objection carries weight because it highlights exactly what happened in 2021 and 2022. When Democrats passed the For the People Act through the House and brought the Freedom to Vote Act to the Senate, Republicans filibustered both bills while insisting that elections should be run by states without federal interference.

Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell led that charge.

“This is not a federal issue. It ought to be left to the states. There’s nothing broken around the country.”

McConnell has maintained that position and has long insisted he believes elections should be governed by states without federal mandates — a stance that puts him in a complicated position as his party now pushes its own version of federal election overhaul.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has also signaled reservations, with her office telling NBC News that while she supported the original, narrower SAVE Act, “there were problems with the SAVE America Act because it went much broader than these original principles.”

Senate Path: Filibuster Fight and Uncertain Math

The bill now moves to the Senate, where its path forward is uncertain at best. Democrats have vowed to block it, and the 60-vote filibuster threshold makes passage functionally impossible without bipartisan support — support that does not exist.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the proposal the equivalent of nationwide voter suppression.

“If you’re one of the 50% of Americans who doesn’t have a passport, or if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who can’t quickly access your birth certificate, the SAVE Act could, in effect, take away your right to vote.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune supports the legislation but flatly rejected calls from Trump and conservative allies to eliminate the filibuster to pass it.

“There aren’t anywhere close to the votes — not even close — to nuking the filibuster. So that idea is something, although it continues to be put out there, that doesn’t have a future.”

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, the bill’s Senate sponsor, has pushed for reviving the “talking filibuster” — requiring opponents to actually hold the floor with continuous debate rather than simply invoking the 60-vote threshold. But Thune has expressed reluctance, noting the strategy could paralyze the Senate floor for weeks.

“Nothing in the Senate’s an easy move. This one’s certainly not. But if we want to do this, this is how we have to go about it.”

Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota called the talking filibuster “very unworkable” while acknowledging he would like to see Democrats forced to vote publicly on the issue.

Other Republicans are exploring attaching the bill to must-pass legislation — such as a DHS appropriations bill or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorization — to force a confrontation. But that approach would complicate already fragile bipartisan negotiations on those measures.

Even without the filibuster, only 49 Republican senators have publicly endorsed the bill. With Murkowski openly opposed and Collins expressing reservations, the GOP may not have a simple majority within its own conference.

The Cross-Partisan Consensus That Isn’t

The SAVE America Act occupies unusual political terrain. Voter ID as a concept enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support — the same Pew Research poll cited by Speaker Johnson found that 71% of Democrats and 76% of Black voters favor requiring government-issued photo ID.

But the bill’s critics argue that the specific mechanisms in this legislation go far beyond what those poll respondents were endorsing. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accused Republicans of using the popular concept as cover for something more restrictive.

“This version is worse than the last version.”

Jeffries predicted the bill would be “dead on arrival in the Senate,” but the broader political implications extend beyond the bill’s legislative prospects. Trump has repeatedly called for the federal government to “nationalize” elections — a concept at odds with the constitutional framework both parties have historically upheld — and the bill’s passage through the House signals momentum toward that goal, regardless of what the Senate does.

Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, acknowledged that he supports voter ID in principle but said he does not expect any version of the SAVE Act to survive the filibuster.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan voting rights organization, warned that the legislation’s cumulative effect would be to transform voting from a right into a privilege that citizens must continuously re-prove.

“We already have laws in place to ensure only citizens are voting, which include strict penalties such as deportation. We should be working to make our elections more inclusive and accessible, and the SAVE Act does the opposite.”

When 83% of Americans support voter ID but the specific bill implementing it faces opposition from within the president’s own party over states’ rights concerns, does the disconnect signal that the policy is sound but the legislation is overreach — or that poll-tested popularity doesn’t survive contact with the constitutional details?

Sources

This report was compiled using information from CBS News’ coverage of the House vote, NBC News’ reporting on the SAVE America Act and Murkowski’s opposition, PBS NewsHour’s analysis of the bill’s provisions, Fox News’ reporting on Senate filibuster dynamics, The Hill’s coverage of the House vote and Murkowski’s break with the party, CNBC’s reporting on Senate prospects, research from the Brennan Center for Justice and their letter to Congress, the Campaign Legal Center’s analysis, Democracy Docket’s legislative coverage, Axios’ policy breakdown, the 19th News’ reporting on the bill’s impact on women voters, and the full bill text at Congress.gov.

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