The House of Representatives passed a measure that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, an effort to put into law one of Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting elections.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, passed by a vote of 220-208, with four Democratic members joining all Republicans present on Thursday.
The bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Chip Roy proposes amending the National Voter Registration Act to require states to obtain proof of citizenship in person from people who are registering to vote or updating their voter registration.
Voting rights advocates have warned that the measure, if passed into law, could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who do not have easy access to identification documents, and would upend how states register people to vote online or through automatic or same-day registration.
The measure — predicated on the GOP’s baseless claims that noncitizens are fraudulently voting in federal elections — would disproportionately impact women and rural and disabled voters, according to election law experts.
“The House has just passed one of the worst pieces of voting legislation in American history,” said Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. “The Senate must stop it. The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens. It should not become law.”
House Democrats Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Henry Cuellar and Ed Case voted in support.
House Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, which oversees federal election administration, called the SAVE Act “one of the most damaging voter suppression bills in modern history.”
“There’s no doubt that women, military members, and people of color will be disproportionately impacted,” he said in a statement. “The fight to stop this bill – to protect Americans’ sacred right to vote – is not over. I will do everything in my power to ensure every eligible American has access to the ballot box.”
The president — who continues to baselessly insist widespread voter fraud manipulated the outcome of the 2020 presidential election — has separately signed an executive order that, among other things, similarly requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
House Republicans — with five Democrats — passed a version of SAVE Act in 2024, after House Speaker Mike Johnson joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago to tie the president’s anti-immigration agenda to “election integrity.” Elon Musk had even suggested that anyone who voted against the bill should be executed for treason. “Those who oppose this are traitors,” he wrote on X at the time. “What is the penalty for traitors again?”
Roughly 146 million people do not have a passport and 13 million U.S. citizens do not have ready access to citizenship documents, according to the Brennan Center.
Roughly 69 million married women would not able to use a birth certificate to prove their identity or citizenship status under the terms of the SAVE Act, according to the Center for American Progress.
Democratic secretaries of state have argued that the SAVE Act and Trump’s executive order needlessly intervenes in local election administration while threatening to upend state and local policies that ensure eligible voters can participate.
The SAVE Act would make it virtually impossible for eligible Americans to register to vote by mail or online, which is allowed in at least 42 states.
It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and federal law requires people to sign sworn statements verifying their citizenship and eligibility. Election officials are already able to review the paper trail to determine fraud, but adding additional proof-of-citizenship requirements for federal races — proposals that have previously been blocked in courts — would add additional burdens, according to state officials.
The measure amounts to “a hasty power grab to allow politicians to choose their voters instead of voters electing their politicians,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows told reporters before Thursday’s vote.
“We don’t want unnecessary barriers and arbitrary deadlines to stand between Vermonters and the right to choose their officials,” added Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland-Hanzas.
“It is a voter suppression tactic that’s dressed up as some sort of reform,” she said.
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