Center for American Progress:

Ever since President Donald Trump took office for his second term, his administration and its allies in Congress have been intent on passing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act or its subsequent, more extreme version, the SAVE America Act. Both of these bills would require Americans to show proof of their citizenship—for the vast majority, through a valid passport or an original copy of their birth certificate—in person to an election official when they register to vote for the first time and every time they update their voter registration for address and name changes.

Acquiring the documentation necessary under the bill could be difficult for millions of eligible American citizens: A passport costs $165 to acquire for the first time, tens of millions of Americans do not have ready access to their birth certificate, and an addition 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name. A military ID would not suffice on its own; neither would most Tribal IDs, and nearly all Americans could not use their REAL ID to prove their citizenship. In addition to this, showing documents in person would pose a challenge for millions of rural Americans. Some would need to spend hundreds of dollars flying to get to their election office; others would have to drive as much as seven or eight hours round trip—all while voter registration would be set back decades for all Americans, with an effective ban on registering to vote through an online or mail-in application.

Despite these facts, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the updated SAVE America Act in February 2026. The legislation has since stalled in the Senate, even after Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) led an effort to force its passage through extended floor debate. With support lacking among Senate Republicans to “nuke” the filibuster—lower the number of votes needed to pass legislation from a supermajority of 60 to a simple majority of 51—Republican leadership has now reportedly set its sights on trying to pass the SAVE Act through the budget reconciliation process.

This strategy has been supported by President Trump, who has continued to call the SAVE Act his “No. 1 priority” and repeatedly called on congressional Republicans to attach it to other “must-pass” legislation, such as housing legislation and, most recently, even the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct targeted surveillance on foreign persons located outside of the United States. In his demands for Congress to pass the SAVE Act, President Trump recently even went so far as to order Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to “immediately fire” the nonpartisan Senate parliamentarian in an effort to clear the way for Republicans to include the SAVE Act in larger pieces of moving legislation.

While the battle over the SAVE Act has been raging in Washington, D.C., for more than a year, conservative state lawmakers have been advancing and enacting bills similar to the SAVE Act across the country with far less public attention. Since the 2024 election, SAVE Act-like laws have been enacted in seven states, and elections for the 2026 midterms will likely be administered under proof-of-citizenship laws in six states. Preventing the passage of the SAVE Act in Congress has been instrumental in ensuring that every eligible American citizen’s right to vote is protected, yet the threat of blocking citizens from the ballot box has grown substantially at the state level. MAGA legislators have made clear that if they cannot get the SAVE Act done in Washington D.C., they will get it done in state capitols across the country. [Continue reading…]