The SAVE America Act Explained: How the New ‘Show Your Papers’ Voting Bill Is Even More Extreme Than the SAVE Act

Congressional Republicans have rebranded the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act as the SAVE America Act, and supporters of the legislation are seemingly intent on ramming it through Congress at all costs. The SAVE Act (H.R. 22) originally passed the House in April 2025 but stalled in the Senate shortly thereafter due to widespread public backlash against the legislation. Americans across the country voiced their opposition to the bill, rendering it too toxic at the time for members to support. The solution to this was a “rebrand” of the bill as the SAVE America Act (S. 1383)—an even more extreme version of the SAVE Act.

Following public pressure from President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other MAGA extremist allies, in February 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act. In addition to requiring American citizens to present in person a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, the legislation would take the strictest voter ID regime of any state and enact it nationwide to create a federal surveillance system of voters, placing it in the hands of the Trump administration. The Senate is poised to take up the measure in the near future, with numerous Republican senators advocating for either sidestepping modern Senate protections for the minority party or going “nuclear” to formally change filibuster rules to allow a simple majority to pass the SAVE America Act.

Republican champions of the SAVE acts, including Republican leadership, have tried to misleadingly label the legislation as a “voter ID bill” to make it more palatable. They have accused congressional Democrats of being weak on election security and opposing voter ID, despite all congressional Democrats having voted to enact a nationwide voter ID requirement similar to existing voter ID laws in many states, including West Virginia. At the time, not a single Republican in Congress voted in support of that requirement. That’s why the current battle over the SAVE America Act is not about voter ID. Rather, it is about the legislation’s “show your papers” mandate that would force Americans to travel hours, in some cases even fly, to prove in person to their election officials that they are a citizen in order to register to vote or update their registration after moving.

It is also vital to recognize that the renewed push to pass the SAVE Act is not happening in isolation. Last summer, President Trump ignited a redistricting arms race when he ordered Texas to gerrymander for five additional Republican-leaning congressional seats, with the goal of influencing the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections and the balance of power in the House. In just the past two months, Trump has stated he “regrets” that he did not order the National Guard to seize voting machines following the 2020 presidential election; his FBI carried out a raid on election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, at the behest of a known election denier and Trump ally who tried to overturn the 2020 election; and the Department of Justice tried to strong-arm Minnesota into handing over its list of registered voters in exchange for lifting Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) siege of the state.

Most recently, reporting from The Washington Post indicates that President Trump is preparing to issue a 17-page executive order written in coordination with far-right activists and conspiracy theorists that cites unsubstantiated claims that China interfered in the 2020 election. Reportedly, he plans to use that as a basis to declare a national emergency and ban the use of mail-in ballots and voting machines.

As courts have already ruled, the president has no legal authority to set rules for elections, and such a move would be illegal and unauthorized under any declaration of national emergency. Americans will remember that a state of national emergency was declared in 2020 because of the coronavirus outbreak and that while some states took measures to adjust election dates, nonetheless, in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic, elections were still safely and securely administered. Even during the Civil War—a fundamental battle over U.S. sovereignty—President Abraham Lincoln insisted on holding an election, believing that it would “be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war.” These reported plans by President Trump would be an unprecedented move in U.S. history and an illegal attempt to interfere with the right to vote of American citizens across the nation.

With every passing week, it is becoming clearer that this administration seems intent on manipulating election rules and taking away the power of the American people to decide the outcomes of elections. The SAVE Act is one key part of this plan. Primaries for the 2026 midterm elections are already underway, with ballots mailed out to military and overseas voters and early voting having begun in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas for the March 3 primary. If the SAVE America Act were signed into law, it would go into effect overnight, changing the requirements for voter registration for all Americans from one day to the next, effectively blocking the voter registration methods nearly all Americans use and adding new restrictions on voting at the polls and by mail in virtually every state. This would change the rules in the middle of the game and make the 2026 elections practically unadministrable.

Americans must be able to make their voices heard at the ballot box. Yet that power is exactly what the Trump administration and its allies are intent on taking away from millions of citizens. Whether in the streets or in the voting booth, the Trump administration has seemingly made it its agenda to silence citizens and deny them their most sacred constitutional right.

Similar to the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act (collectively referred to as the SAVE acts) would add red tape to how all Americans vote. The requirement to present documents proving citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote could block millions of Americans who do not have such documentation from casting a ballot, while the requirement to do so in person would effectively ban the voter registration methods that 94 percent of Americans use and make it much more difficult for many rural Americans to register to vote.

It is critical to note that federal law already clearly states that it is illegal for non-U.S. citizens to register to vote or cast a ballot in federal elections. It’s an existing crime that is prosecuted in the very rare instances it happens and punishable by up to five years in prison.

Additionally, election officials already take steps to verify a person’s eligibility to vote before registering them as a voter. Under federal law, anyone applying to register to vote must already provide either their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Officials use this information to verify a person’s identity and eligibility to vote under federal and state law. This involves using federal and state databases to confirm an applicant’s citizenship status and any history of criminal convictions. This process essentially serves as a “background check” for voter registration. The SAVE Act would disrupt this “background check” process and instead make American citizens prove to their own government that they are a citizen. In addition to this, election officials conduct routine voter list maintenance procedures to remove ineligible people from their rolls, such as people who have moved out of state, died, or become ineligible due to a criminal conviction.

SAVE Act vs. SAVE America Act

SAVE Act (H.R. 22):

• The vast majority of Americans would need to show a passport or certified birth certificate in combination with a photo ID. A naturalization certificate or adoption decree would also work.
  • As previous Center for American Progress analysis has shown, 146 million American citizens do not have a valid passport.
  • 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name and would face additional hurdles to voting.

• The legislation would affect not just first-time registrants but also any citizen making a voter registration update for things such as moving, changing their name after marriage, or even switching party affiliation.
  • For a federal election cycle, approximately 80 million to 100 million Americans register to vote for the first time or for updates, meaning that many Americans would be affected by the SAVE Act every two years.

• The REAL ID driver’s licenses of nearly all Americans would not work, as REAL IDs are proof of legal residence, not citizenship, and are available to noncitizens, such as green card and visa holders.
  • The legislation specifically states that a REAL ID that “indicates” a person is a citizen would work, but standard REAL IDs do not indicate citizenship status and the REAL ID driver’s licenses of citizens and noncitizens look indistinguishable. During a hearing in 2025, the sponsor of the SAVE Act, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), even admitted that the REAL IDs of the vast majority of citizens would not work.
  • Only enhanced driver’s licenses (EDLs), which are offered by five states bordering Canada, would likely work as REAL IDs that prove citizenship. These are available only to citizens and essentially serve as passport cards for driving across the border. Even in these states, EDLs are not the state’s standard-issued REAL ID licenses.

• Military and Tribal IDs also would not work, as they generally do not explicitly indicate that someone is a citizen or list their place of birth. Additionally, noncitizens can serve in the U.S. military.
• The requirement to show documents in person would:
  • Effectively block the voter registration methods that 94 percent of Americans use—methods such as submitting a registration application online, mailing in an application, and registering at a motor vehicle agency such as the DMV. The only reliable way for the majority of Americans to register to vote would be to do so in person at an election office—a method currently used by only about 6 percent of Americans.
  • Pose a huge burden for millions of rural Americans, some of whom would need to drive as much as seven or eight hours roundtrip to reach their designated election office, typically located in their county seat. Some Americans in Alaska and Hawaii could even be forced to fly.
  • Disproportionately affect working Americans, as election offices are typically open Monday through Friday during core business hours, meaning many working Americans could be forced to take time off work to register to vote. Working Americans already struggle to take time off to cast a ballot; with remote voter registration methods effectively banned under the SAVE Act, they would also likely be forced to take time off work to register to vote.
  • Cause chaos in major cities given that as an election approaches, millions of people would be trying to register to vote or update their registration at just a handful of election offices. New York City, for instance, has just six election offices.

SAVE America Act (S. 1383):

• From the SAVE Act: Includes the same in-person requirement for voter registration and would force the vast majority of Americans to use either a passport or certified birth certificate in combination with photo ID to register to vote at their election office. All of the above outlined impacts and obstacles are applicable to the SAVE America Act.
• New for voting in person: Would require Americans to show photo ID when casting a ballot.
  • The voter ID requirement is more strict than current voter ID laws on the books in all but one state, Ohio, meaning that even in the 35 other states that already have voter ID laws, including Florida and Texas, voting would become more restrictive.
  • The use of student IDs is not permitted under the legislation, and many Tribal IDs could not be used as they often do not have expiration dates—a requirement of the bill. Additionally, government-issued IDs such as hunting or fishing licenses could not be used, as they typically do not have a photo of the cardholder.

• New for voting by mail: Under the voter ID requirement, those voting by mail would be required to include a printed-out copy of their voter ID with their request for a ballot and with their ballot. This would:
  • Likely upend all-mail elections in eight states, including Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Colorado.
  • Make voting by mail harder for millions of Americans in states where voters request a mail ballot. This would include voters in states that already have voter ID laws, as these laws are typically enforced only when voting in person.
    • For example, Florida requires voters to show ID at the polls, but if voting by mail, voters must include either their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number with their ballot request as a layer of security and identity verification. When casting that ballot, Florida requires a signature that is matched with the signature on file for the voter, typically from their license. But under the SAVE America Act, despite Florida already being a voter ID state, voters would need to include a scanned and printed copy of their voter ID with both their mail-in ballot request and their ballot.

• New for voter rolls: Would require states to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on a regular basis, effectively creating a federalized surveillance system of voters under Secretary Kristi Noem. This would likely lead to the inaccurate removal of citizens from voter rolls across the nation.
  • Texas handed over its voter rolls voluntarily to DHS for screening, and reporting has shown that the department has flagged hundreds of citizens for removal and that naturalized citizens are particularly at risk for being inaccurately flagged for removal.

• New for enactment: All provisions would be effective immediately upon the legislation being signed into law. Primary elections for 2026 are already underway, and all of the policies in the SAVE America Act would go into effect overnight. From one day to the next, the bill would:
  • Change voter registration requirements for all Americans and block the voter registration methods nearly all Americans use.
  • Enact the strictest voter ID regime of any state nationwide, which would restrict existing voter ID laws in 35 states and enact voter ID in 14 states.
  • Change requirements for requesting and casting a mail-in ballot, which would make it much more difficult for tens of millions of Americans to vote by mail, likely lead to much higher rejection rates for mail-in ballots, and even potentially disqualify ballots that were requested or mailed back before the bill was signed into law but that have not yet been counted.

In addition to the requirements in the SAVE America Act outlined above, President Trump has stated numerous times that the legislation would ban mail-in voting. While mail-in voting would not explicitly be banned by the SAVE America Act as it is currently drafted, a ban on all-mail elections is part of the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, another “show your papers” mandate similar to the SAVE acts.

The threat of the most restrictive piece of federal voting legislation in U.S. history becoming the law of the land has never been more real. If the Senate passes the SAVE America Act—which would go into effect immediately—the 2026 elections become practically unadministrable and voting as every single American citizen knows it becomes more difficult. And despite claiming that the bill is meant to prevent noncitizen voting in federal elections, supporters of the legislation have been increasingly vocal that the SAVE America Act is an attempt to nationalize elections and ensure that Republicans win elections. Despite data showing that Republican voters would be disproportionately affected by the bill, President Trump went on to say that if the SAVE Act became law, Republicans would “never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race.”

Members of the far right are so committed to blocking citizens from the ballot box that they have waged an ongoing effort to require proof of citizenship ever since President Trump took office. In addition to trying to pass the SAVE Act and SAVE America Act: 1) President Trump issued an unconstitutional executive order in March 2025 to require proof of citizenship, which the courts blocked; 2) A nonprofit group founded by Trump White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller filed a petition with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to amend the federal voter registration form to require documentary proof of citizenship; 3) DHS launched its overhauled “SAVE” system to “check” voter rolls for citizenship status—an effort that has resulted in states erroneously flagging citizens as ineligible and requiring them to show documentary proof of their citizenship to stay on voter rolls; and 4) a bus tour and social media and advocacy campaign has been spearheaded by White House-allied election deniers Cleta Mitchell and Scott Pressler, respectively, aimed at passing the SAVE Act. As the proverb goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”—and then try, try again some more after you call in Stephen Miller and notorious election denier Cleta Mitchell to help out.

Lawmakers championing the SAVE Act have claimed that it is intended to help end voter fraud by preventing noncitizens from voting in federal elections. While in theory that is a laudable goal, noncitizen voting in elections is exceedingly rare and the impacts of the SAVE Act would have virtually no measurable effect on noncitizen voting. The SAVE Act would, however, block millions of actual citizens from voting. That is one of the reasons even some conservatives are divided in their stance on the legislation.

Lack of evidence to support claims of widespread noncitizen voting

The key reason the SAVE Act would have no measurable effect on noncitizen voting is because the extremely rare instances of noncitizen voting in federal elections already amount to 0 percent of ballots cast. The instances are so rare in fact that even The Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025, has been able to uncover just 100 instances of noncitizen voter fraud since 2000. This number is microscopic given that, between 2000 and 2026, 1.5 billion ballots were cast in federal elections. Therefore, even if all those 100 instances identified by The Heritage Foundation resulted in a ballot cast, that would account for 0.000007 percent of all ballots cast—or, more simply, 0.00 percent. Most pressingly, there is no evidence that noncitizen voting has ever affected the outcome of an election. It’s also worth noting that just 6 percent of identified voter fraud instances in Heritage’s database involve noncitizens, meaning that the vast majority of the identified instances of fraud involve U.S. citizens—something the SAVE Act’s requirement to prove citizenship would have absolutely no impact on.

In 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said, “We all know – intuitively – that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that is easily provable.” But in reality, officials have had numerous opportunities to prove noncitizen voting exists through federal and state investigations. President Trump’s own Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity was disbanded in 2018 after failing to find widespread evidence of noncitizen voting. He had the power and resources of the office of the president to prove his claims and could not. Just recently in Utah—the home state of Sen. Mike Lee, the lead sponsor of the SAVE acts—the state’s chief election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, completed a thorough review of the state’s 2.1 million registered voters and did not find a single instance of a noncitizen having cast a ballot. Yet champions of the SAVE Act continue to support making it more difficult for every American citizen to vote based solely on their “intuition.”

Real-life evidence the SAVE acts will disenfranchise citizens

Despite all of the evidence, it is understandable that Americans are concerned about the integrity of elections and want to feel that elections are safe and secure and that their vote matters. But the SAVE Act will not improve election integrity; it will, however, block citizens from exercising their constitutional right to vote, as was demonstrated in Kansas. In 2013, Kansas experimented with a law similar though less strict than the SAVE Act that ended up blocking more than 31,000 eligible citizens from registering to vote. Shortly after, the law was overturned. Kansas is a mere foreshadowing of the impact the SAVE Act would have on the constitutional right to vote of American citizens nationwide.

Sponsors of the SAVE Act have been quick to point out that a 2020 congressional election in Iowa was decided by just six votes. They’ve used this as a talking point to seemingly cast doubt on the integrity of elections and to make their case that even a few noncitizens voting could influence the outcome of an election. What they neglect to mention is that election was audited and certified as valid by state and local election officials, including Iowa’s Republican secretary of state. There is absolutely no reason to doubt that congressional election was decided by anything other than six citizens. And when considering that more than 31,000 people across Kansas were blocked from the ballot box because of the state’s SAVE Act-like law, that demonstrates exactly why the SAVE Act is so dangerous. Because sometimes, the outcome of an election is decided by just six citizens.

When considering the virtually nonexistent impacts of the SAVE Act on noncitizen voting but its potential to block millions of citizens from the ballot box, the editorial board of the National Review, a conservative outlet, wrote that the SAVE Act was not “worth the cost,” and that while noncitizen voting should be addressed, “it is prudent not to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.” The SAVE Act is that sledgehammer.

Notably, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has stated she opposes the legislation. She even authored an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News detailing how it would harm Alaska voters, especially rural voters, given that 20 percent of Alaska’s population “is not on the road system.” She also reinforced that some Alaskans would be forced to fly to get to their election office to show their citizenship documents to an election official. While less vocal in his opposition, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has not co-sponsored the bill, has used his role as chair of the Rules Committee to stall the bill in the Senate, and criticized calls to nationalize elections—keeping with the Republican Party’s longtime policy position that states should be in charge of elections.

Despite claims from the president that the SAVE Act would ensure Republicans win elections, based on data, Republican voters are actually more likely to face obstacles showing the two primary forms of citizenship required under the bill as well as more likely to face burdens showing documentation in person at an election office.

Key factors for this are that:

• As a whole, Republican voters are less likely to have a passport than Democratic voters, and citizens living in red and rural states such as Alabama, West Virginia, and Mississippi are far less likely to own a passport than citizens in blue coastal states such as New York and California.
• Americans who have not obtained a college degree are also far less likely to possess a passport and are more likely to identify as Republican.
• Conservative Republican women are more likely to change their name upon getting married and would therefore face more hurdles than liberal Democratic women when trying to use a birth certificate to prove their citizenship status under the SAVE Act.
• Rural voters, 60 percent of whom identify as Republican, would face some of the largest hurdles to showing up in person at their election office to register to vote. Many rural voters heavily rely on remote voter registration methods that would be effectively blocked by the SAVE Act, such as registering to vote online or mailing in an application, and also greatly rely on mail-in voting, which would become more difficult under the legislation, with the need to scan and print out copies of their voter ID to include with a ballot.

While these are facts all lawmakers should keep in mind for how the legislation may affect American citizens, the guiding principle is that the constitutional right to vote belongs to all American citizens. Lawmakers elected to represent all their constituents should not support legislation or policy that is designed to block people from the voting booth based on their political views or party affiliation.

In 2025, many Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the SAVE Act stalled in Congress. Many members of Congress opposing the SAVE Act declared the bill “dead on arrival” in the Senate, citing the 60-vote filibuster threshold. For nearly a year, they were right.

Yet 2026 has brought a far more aggressive assault. Congressional leaders are now openly plotting to sidestep or “nuke” the filibuster to force the SAVE America Act into law. During his 2026 State of the Union address, President Trump went so far as to call voting a “privilege.” But he’s wrong. Voting is not a privilege or favor bestowed by the government—it is a fundamental constitutional right of American citizens.

In the 250-year history of the United States, Congress has never passed a law that would restrict the right to vote of citizens and even block millions of citizens from the ballot box. If the SAVE America Act passes, it will be the first. All members of Congress took an oath to uphold the Constitution; now is the time to prove they meant it. They must block the SAVE America Act.