The SAVE Act

Susan Estrich on Mar 26, 2026

The Republicans are determined to pass it. It's their Hail Mary pass for the midterms. If you can't win an election fair and square, then suppress the votes. Disenfranchise those who aren't likely to vote for you. Create a phony problem that you then have to solve. It's an outrage. And it's happening in real time.

"The cheating is rampant in our elections," President Donald Trump told Congress last month. That's a lie. It isn't. The liberal Brennan Center reached the same conclusion as the conservative Heritage Foundation. Noncitizen voting is ridiculously rare. The Brennan Center found exactly 30 instances of noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes it reviewed in the 2016 election. The Heritage Foundation found 24 instances of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections between 2003 and 2023.

Results from the states confirm these numbers. A sample from Reuters: Florida has prosecuted two people for voting as noncitizens since 2022, out of 13.5 million registered voters. In Kansas, a 2018 court case found that 39 noncitizens registered to vote between 1999 and 2013, out of roughly 1.8 million registered voters. Nevada found that three noncitizens voted in the 2016 election, out of more than 1 million ballots cast.

"You gotta win the midterms," Trump told House Republicans in January, "because if we don't win the midterms, they'll find a reason to impeach me." And how do you do that when the country is turning against the president? The answer Trump gave last week was simple. Pass the SAVE Act. "It'll guarantee the midterms ... If you send it up there, you will win the midterms and you will win every election for a long time."

By disenfranchising women voters, young people and poor Americans. By making it more difficult for people to vote, you make it easier for Republicans to win. It is shameful.

Here's how it works, or rather doesn't work. The bill requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. A real ID isn't even enough; only five states -- Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington -- even offer a special "enhanced" driver's license that indicates citizenship and those cost extra. For everyone else, you'd need a U.S. passport or a birth certificate paired with a photo ID to register to vote.

But wait. Who has a valid passport? About 146 million Americans don't. And the birth certificate won't work for the 84% of married women who change their last name and so would also need a copy of their marriage license, in addition to the birth certificate and photo ID, just to register, or re-register to vote. That's some 69 million American women whose birth certificate no longer matches their legal names. Under the SAVE Act, any of them who need to register, re-register, or update their address would have to show up in person at an election office -- which only 6% of voters currently do -- with three separate documents: a birth certificate, a photo ID and a marriage certificate to bridge the gap between the two. Those who fail to do so or who are swept up in the bill's mandatory voter-roll purges could lose the right to vote.

What are Republicans so afraid of? How can they tie up the Senate on this? Have they no shame?

They are afraid of women voters. They are afraid of new voters. They are afraid that the more people vote, the worse they will do. They are doing nothing less than undermining the democratic process. It is simply indefensible.

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