A proposal that President Trump and Congressional Republican leaders have called their top priority appears to be stalled in the U.S. Senate. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act (S. 1383) would require that in order to register to vote or update voter registration with a new address or name change, registrants would have to show up in person with proof of citizenship and photo identification.
According to polls, most Americans support the idea in concept: In one CBS News poll, 66% support a requirement to show proof of citizenship, and 80% support a requirement to show ID in order to vote.
But support for the bill in Congress is divided on party lines. When a slightly less stringent bill called the SAVE Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives Feb. 11 by 218-211, just one Democrat voted for it, and no Republicans voted against it. The Senate version of that bill, the SAVE America Act, adds the ID requirement at the time of voting not just at registration.
The bill’s Democratic critics say the solution is worse than the problem because it will make it harder for millions of citizens to register and vote — in order to stop a kind of election fraud that’s so rare it would never affect the outcome of an election. It also imposes administrative costs on local election officials without providing any federal funding to offset that.
Though it’s already a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, it does happen. It’s just really rare. The conservative Heritage Foundation put together a database listing 1,620 confirmed election fraud prosecutions from 1982 to 2025; only 100 were cases of non-citizens voting.
In fact, there’s a test case of how the SAVE America Act might work, because Kansas passed a similar law at the state level in 2011. It took effect in 2013, but a federal court struck it down as unconstitutional in 2018. As revealed in court, during the 13 years before the law took effect, 39 noncitizens had successfully registered to vote in Kansas. And in the five years the law was in effect, the law prevented 28 noncitizen applicants from registering. But during that same time, the law’s requirements also prevented roughly 31,000 citizens from registering, about 12% of all those who had tried to register for the first time. In other words, the law prevented more than 1,000 U.S. citizens from registering for every non-citizen it kept off the voter rolls.
The SAVE America Act’s requirements are stricter than the ones struck down in Kansas, because Kansas allowed voters to submit documents electronically or by mail. A requirement to register in person could be an obstacle for people who work during election office hours, for seniors and people with disabilities, and for rural people.
Citing concerns about the SAVE America Act’s collateral damage on citizens, several labor organizations have urged members of Congress to reject the bill.
“Federal laws already exist prohibiting non-citizen voting, and there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud to justify the extreme measures imposed on citizens by this bill,” wrote AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Jody Calemine in a letter to members of Congress. “By requiring individuals to present documentary proof of citizenship in person to an election official, this bill would undermine measures like mail and online voter registration intended to benefit working people and their schedules.”
Postal unions also weighed in, because one of the bill’s provisions invalidates mail-in ballots unless a photocopied form of identification is included. “This would make an already reliable, preferred and protected process more difficult,” said the National Association of Letter Carriers in a letter to Congress. “Nearly 1 in 3 Americans voted by mail in 2024, and letter carriers safely and securely delivered nearly 100 million ballots to and from voters. Any insinuation that voting by mail is unsafe or insecure is severely misguided and inaccurate.”
Starting March 17, the Senate spent several days debating amendments to the bill, but supporters appear to lack the necessary 60-vote supermajority to end debate and move to a vote on passage. Just 51 senators voted to discuss the bill, with Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski joining all Democrats in voting no. On March 30, the Senate began a two-week recess.
