The House passed a bill Wednesday that Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., claims will counter a major scourge that threatens the sanctity of federal elections. Republicans argue that the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — which passed 221-198 — is necessary to defend against noncitizens voting in the fall, potentially swinging the results of federal elections. In reality, the SAVE Act is a solution to an all-but-nonexistent problem, but if enacted would make it harder for American citizens to exercise their right to vote.
As with much of the House Republican agenda, this bill owes its existence Donald Trump. Johnson joined the former president at Mar-a-Lago in April to talk about “election integrity,” the sanitized term that the GOP has adopted to launder Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories. Since that day, the speaker has made the subtext of the bill’s intentions into text, falsely claiming on X that Democrats oppose the resulting bill because “they want illegals to vote in our elections.”
As with much of the House Republican agenda, this bill owes its existence Donald Trump.
Unsurprisingly, this is false. Republicans will point to a few cities like New York and Washington that allow noncitizens to vote. But that permission only applies to legal residents participating in local elections, not state or federal contests. Given how rare it is that noncitizens even attempt to register to vote, let alone manage to cast a ballot, the bill is an Anti-Tiger Rock at best, falsely taking credit for solving a problem that doesn’t actually exist. And like most snake oil, it’s much more likely that this bill will leave the patient sicker than if this supposed palliative had never been offered.
In practice, the SAVE Act, drafted by archconservative Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, overhauls the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. That act mandates that states allow residents to register to vote when applying for a driver’s license or other official ID card. In states like New York, that requires applicants to affirm that they’re a U.S. citizen as part of the process, signing an affidavit that makes clear that lying on the form is a crime. Under the SAVE Act, those states would now be forced to require applicants to provide documentary proof that they are a citizen, including a passport or birth certificate, at the time they fill out the form.
This requirement would add a hurdle that many Americans born in the continental U.S. would not be able to easily clear. A survey that the Brennan Center for Justice and other democracy groups conducted last year found that “more than 9 percent of American citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, don’t have proof of citizenship readily available. … And at least 3.8 million don’t have these documents at all, often because they were lost, destroyed, or stolen.”
Imagine that you’ve moved across state lines and need to register to vote in your new district. The odds that you may wait to change your registration — or never change it at all — would likely increase as more burdens are placed on the process, much as forcing people who qualify for federal aid to jump through hoops prevents them from accessing it. And forget about celebrities like Taylor Swift driving nearly as many people to register online at Vote.org if new registrants have to find and upload their documents as part of the process.
Furthermore, the bill’s language is as dangerously imprecise in some areas as it is draconian in others. There is nothing that makes clear whether a state would have to accept documents from someone whose name has legally changed due to marriage or gender transition. Voters would likewise be allowed to register only if they provide a birth certificate issued by “a state, unit of local government, or a Tribal government.”
Tellingly, the rhetoric from Republicans as the bill was being debated on the House floor on Wednesday mostly focused on President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
That requirement could be waived with a naturalization certificate, say, but would have to be paired with a “valid government-issued photo identification card issued by a Federal, State or Tribal government.” As Del. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, D-Northern Marianas Islands, pointed out in the floor debate, the bill’s language manages to completely ignore the territories, disenfranchising his constituents even further.
Tellingly, the rhetoric from Republicans as the bill was being debated on the House floor on Wednesday mostly focused on President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. A common refrain throughout the day was that the SAVE Act is necessary because of the number of immigrants who have entered the country since Biden took office. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump rightly referred to this bill as the legislative version of the Great Replacement Theory, which claims that Democrats are trying to drown out white voters with an influx of migrants who will vote illegally.
The good news is that this bill will not pass the Senate this term, let alone avoid a presidential veto. But five swing district Democrats crossed party lines to give it their approval, showing their concern that the GOP’s rhetoric might hit home with their voters. Moreover, given the threat of a full GOP takeover of Congress next year, we could see the return of the SAVE Act. If so, it would not be as a cheap stunt to raise the specter of an immigrant takeover, but as a newly printed law on the books, one that would further chip away at access to Americans’ most fundamental rights.