The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require individuals to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in person upon registering to vote in a federal election, was reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Chip Roy on Jan. 3.
The bill would also oblige states to remove noncitizens from official voter rolls and impose criminal penalties for registering applicants who failed to provide sufficient proof of U.S. citizenship to vote.
“A vast majority of our countrymen agree: only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections,” Sen. Mike Lee, the author of the companion Senate legislation, said.
“The SAVE Act gives states the ability to prevent illegal voter registration and protect the ballot box from foreign election interference.”
The bill was first introduced by Roy and other Republican representatives on May 7, 2024.
However, due to opposition from the U.S. Senate and the White House, it failed to pass the U.S. House by a vote of 202-220 on Sept. 18, 2024.
Under the SAVE Act, a birth certificate, a U.S. passport or other documentation confirming U.S. citizenship would be accepted for voter registration.
An Enhanced Driver’s License — a state-issued document certifying U.S. citizenship — would also satisfy the bill’s requirement. Yet, those can be obtained in only five states.
If implemented, the SAVE Act would require millions of Americans to provide proof of citizenship to vote.
According to research conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice, 21.3 million American citizens of voting age do not have instant access to their citizenship documents, and at least 3.8 million reported having none of these documents at all.
Additionally, the research exposed the prejudice of the bill toward Americans of color; while the fraction of white American citizens who do not have easy access to their citizenship documents equals approximately 8%, this number rises to 11% for Americans of color.
Moreover, the SAVE Act would make federal elections less accessible for the disabled community and millions of married women whose altered last names do not match the information on their birth certificates.
The in-person requirement of the bill would also eradicate popular voter registration methods, including online and mail registration.
Based on the Election Administration and Voting Survey, more than 37 million Americans utilized these methods before the 2020 election, while only 7.7 million registered at an elections office.
The opposition argues that the issue the SAVE Act confronts is not substantial, considering the existing federal laws prohibiting noncitizen voting and an insignificant number of cases — ranging from none to several hundred per state — when noncitizens registered to vote.
“It is just mind-boggling to think that someone who has decided to move themselves and their family to the United States and try to build a life here is going to risk all of that, risk their freedom and their presence in the United States, to cast one ballot in one election,” Sean Morales-Doyle, a voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, said.
