AMERICAN PROGRESS ARTICLE JAN 31, 2025 • Last updated on Feb 3, 2025
The SAVE Act Would Disenfranchise Millions of Citizens
The SAVE Act would require all Americans to prove their citizenship with documentation unavailable to millions and upend the way every American citizen registers to vote.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation would require all Americans to prove their citizenship status by presenting documentation—in person—when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. Specifically, the legislation would require the vast majority of Americans to rely on a passport or birth certificate to prove their citizenship.
While this may sound easy for many Americans, the reality is that more than 140 million American citizens do not possess a passport and as many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.
Because documentation would need to be presented in person, the legislation would, in practice, prevent Americans from being able to register to vote by mail; end voter registration drives nationwide; and eliminate online voter registration overnight—a service 42 states rely on. Americans would need to appear in person, with original documentation, to even simply update their voter registration information for a change of address or change in party affiliation.
These impacts alone would set voter registration sophistication and technology back by decades and would be unworkable for millions of Americans, including more than 60 million people who live in rural areas. Additionally, driver’s licenses—including REAL IDs—as well military or tribal IDs would not be sufficient forms of documentation to prove citizenship under the legislation.*
In short, the SAVE Act is disastrous legislation that would drastically alter the way every American citizen registers to vote. The legislation completely disregards the resources available to most Americans as well as the reality of American women’s lives. Despite these overwhelming facts and the real possibility that millions of Americans—Republicans, Democrats, and independents—could be disenfranchised, leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives has declared that passing the legislation is one of their top priorities for the 119th Congress.
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 punishable by up to five years in prison.
Election officials also already use state and federal data—including citizenship data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration—to verify an individual’s eligibility to cast a ballot. What the SAVE Act would do is invert the responsibility to verify a person’s eligibility and citizenship status from election officials and the government onto American citizens.
It’s also critical to note that there are already documentation requirements to be able to register to vote. As required by federal law, Americans must provide either the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number on a voter registration application in order to provide election officials with the necessary information to verify their identity and voting eligibility. The SAVE Act seeks to upend this process and turn a relatively well-oiled system—where officials are tasked with the work of verification—and, instead, make every single American citizen put in the work, time, and resources to exercise their constitutional right to vote and convince the government that they’re eligible.
Half of American citizens do not have a valid passport
In addition to setting voter registration back to the pre-internet era, the SAVE Act threatens the constitutional rights of American citizens, as tens of millions of citizens do not possess the documentation required under the bill.
According to statements and data released by the U.S. Department of State, approximately only half of American citizens possess a passport. This means that half of all American citizens would not be able to provide one of the primary acceptable forms of documentation that would be required to register to vote under the SAVE Act.
Nationwide, approximately 146 million American citizens do not possess a passport. To put that number into perspective, 153 million Americans cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential general election.
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https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-overview-and-facts/
FACT SHEET JAN 31, 2025
The SAVE Act: Overview and Facts
The SAVE Act would require all Americans to prove their citizenship with documentation unavailable to millions and upend the way every American citizen registers to vote.
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Informational materials and voter registration forms are seen on a table at a volunteer-run voter registration booth in Atlanta on September 17, 2024. (Getty/David Walter Banks)
Quick summary
• The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would require all American citizens registering to vote or updating their registration information to present documentary proof of citizenship in person. For the vast majority of Americans, this would be a passport or birth certificate.
• Government-issued driver’s licenses—including REAL IDs—as well as military or tribal IDs do not satisfy the bill’s requirements.
• The legislation would invert the responsibility to verify a person’s eligibility and citizenship status from election officials and the government onto every single American citizen, making citizens convince the government that they’re eligible to exercise their right to vote.
• The SAVE Act would change the way all citizens register to vote upon enactment. It would upend online voter registration, make it impossible to mail in a registration application, and eliminate voter registration drives.
• Approximately 146 million Americans citizens do not possess a valid passport—for context, 153 million Americans voted in the 2024 presidential general election:
• High rates of passport ownership are overwhelmingly concentrated in blue states, while low rates are concentrated in red states.
• In seven states, less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport: West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
• Only in four states do more than two-thirds of citizens have a valid passport: New York, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey.
• 84 percent of women who marry change their surname, meaning as many as 69 million American women do not have a birth certificate with their legal name on it and thereby could not use their birth certificate to prove citizenship. The SAVE Act makes no mention of being able to show a marriage certificate or change-of-name documentation.
• The SAVE Act poses a serious socioeconomic issue that would disproportionately impact working-class and lower-income Americans:
• Only 1 in 4 Americans with a high school degree or less have a valid passport.
• Only 1 in 5 Americans with income below $50,000 have a valid passport.
• Young Americans (those ages 18 to 29), those with college and postgraduate levels of education, wealthy Americans, and those who identify as liberal or Democrat are the most likely groups to possess the required forms of documentation. “Coastal elites” are the least likely group to be adversely affected by the bill.
• Republicans are less likely to possess a passport, and conservative and Republican-leaning women are twice as likely to have changed their surname.
Impacts
Even small changes such as moving into an apartment building, moving down the block, or changing party affiliation are considered voter registration updates. Under the SAVE Act, Americans would have to go in person to their election office and present original or certified documentation to make any voter registration change.
This would make civic participation much more difficult for tens of millions of citizens every election cycle and would outright disenfranchise millions more. The policies of the SAVE Act would also be in addition to state voter ID laws that require voters to show identification at the polls:
• Online voter registration—a service 42 states rely on—would be upended or even eliminated. Notably, 8 million Americans used online registration in the 2022 cycle.
• Voters could no longer mail in a voter registration application; they would still have to show up in person with documentation to complete registration. Notably, 3 million Americans registered to vote by mail, email, or fax in the 2022 cycle. Rural Americans would be particularly affected.
• Automatic voter registration (AVR) administered through motor vehicle agencies and other state agencies would be severely gutted. Millions of online and mail motor vehicle agency transactions could no longer be used to update voter registration databases. Systems of AVR like the one through Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend could no longer function.
• For the 2022 cycle, of the 1 million Americans who registered to vote or updated their voter registration, only 5.9 percent did so in person at an election office. Under the SAVE Act, tens of millions of Americans would likely be waiting in lines in election offices to update their voter registration information every election cycle. This would pose a significant barrier to voting and overwhelm election offices.
• Voter registration drives would be eliminated, and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts would be upended.
Correcting the record
• REAL IDs would not work. The legislation states that “a form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States” can be used. However, no state’s REAL ID indicates citizenship status, and legally residing noncitizens can obtain a REAL ID
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Election integrity
• Election officials are required to verify a person’s eligibility to vote using state and federal data, including citizenship data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, data from the Social Security Administration, death data, and U.S. Postal Service change-of-address data.
• Under federal law, anyone registering to vote must also provide either their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number to provide election officials with the necessary information to verify their identity and voting eligibility.
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