The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) legislation that was recently passed by the House of Representatives and is being touted by the president is being presented as a law which will prevent voter fraud, specifically voter fraud being committed by undocumented aliens.
Before presenting my opinion, I tried to find a factual summary and opinion of the new requirements that this law would create, just to make sure that I was not reacting to opinions about the law as opposed to the actual law itself.
Here is a link to an article I found helpful.
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act/
On the face of it, there is a common sense reason to require a photo ID to vote as without that picture, anyone could show up and claim to be the person on the voting rolls. Of course, if you are not that person on the voting roll, I guess you would have to make sure you got to the polls before the "real" person whose ID you are stealing. I know that in the fifty years I have voted in Pennsylvania, I was required to give my name, a poll worker would page to the "P" section (first letter of my last name) and I would have to provide my signature as it was printed. At first I had to show my driver's license, which in itself is not proof of citizenship but does have my picture, but as time passed and I voted at the same precinct year after year and saw the same people processing the voters, I was recognized and not asked for ID.
Five years ago, I moved to a different county, but same state. However, had I moved to a different state, the new requirements of the SAVE Act would have required me to prove my citizenship with a birth certificate to register to vote in that new state.
Same for my wife but she would have had to provide a third document, our marriage certificate, as the name on her birth certificate does not match that on her driver's license. So, while she did not have to navigate this hoop for our move, she did have to go through this step last year when we applied for new passports. As it turned out, we both had to apply for new birth certificates ($30 each) as our old ones did not include the birth city of our parents, as required by the passport application.
This is the kind of obstacle that people are referring to when they advocate against the SAVE Act, as it creates obstacles to voting that may discourage people, or worse, require a document that is not readily accessible, in particular, a marriage certificate. To be honest, I was surprised that we had ours as it had never been required for anything in our past, not needed to buy a home, to access the benefits of a will, to create investment vehicles, etc, yet again, had we not found it, would have required another request (for a fee) from the state.
Of course, if you are already on a voting roll for your local poll site, you will just need to provide a photo ID to confirm that you are the person listed on that voting roll, again, something that is fairly common already in our country, at least as far as my experience goes. However, if you were placed on that voting roll illegally, just showing a driver's license will not change the fact that you should not be voting, so unless we decide to re-register every eligible voter in our country by requesting documentation that many people may not have, I am not sure what this new legislation will do except place obstacles in the way of legal voters who do not have documents at hand that prove their citizenship.
This is one of the main points of the article I linked above. The other main point is that there is no credible evidence that undocumented people are voting in mass numbers as detailed in the findings by the vast majority of the research into this claim, including the results of the very conservative Heritage Foundation.
Here is a link to an article that discusses that particular study.
https://factually.co/fact-checks/politics/heritage-foundation-77-undocumented-voters-claim-true-or-false-e33e6f
In other words, it appears that the SAVE Act is a law in search of a problem that doesn't exist.
But more insidiously, it is a piece of legislation that has been created to back up the Big Lie that our current president has touted ever since his loss in the 2016 presidential election, the same lie that inspired hundreds of his supporters to attack the Capitol building in an attempt to prevent the (normally) perfunctory confirmation of the electoral college results, the same lie that led to calls for Vice President Pence to be hung for not rejecting the electors of a certain few states, and/or to allow fake electors to replace those legitimate electors.
What truly saddens me is that within my own family, before Trump, we often debated how to get MORE Americans to vote, even though we represented different political beliefs. We were united in our hope that by making it easier to vote, America would someday break the 70% voter participation rate, a rate, by the way, which represents the percentage of registered voters, not eligible voters defined as all American adults over 18 who have no other obstacle to vote other than lack of being registered. We all believed that the more people who voted, the more our government would represent the citizens.
Now, some of those very same relatives, believe the lies from Trump, and support the SAVE Act, even when presented with evidence that there is no mass voting by the undocumented, and that a significant percentage of Americans would struggle to prove their citizenship if required.
The fact is, it is already illegal to vote if you are not a citizen, and the penalty for doing so is a felony which would put the illegal voter on the fast track to deportation. So why do it?
Similar to the research that indicates that non-citizens commit less crimes than those of us who are citizens, people here illegally know NOT to draw attention to themselves for the genuine fear of being deported. They want to be here, so why do anything that will threaten the continuation of staying? It is one of the justifications behind sanctuary cities. If a victim of a crime is undocumented but afraid to go to the police to report it, that crime, and future crimes will not be prevented or investigated. And, since undocumented people are more likely to be victims of crimes that to be criminals, it makes sense.
Of course, any crime committed by someone here illegally, needs to be investigated, and, if judged to be guilty, that person should be deported. It was the basis behind the idea that the "worst of the worst" would be identified and removed from our country that drove so many people to vote GOP last November. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening because, again, some of the rhetoric was based on the lie that illegal immigrants were driving up crime rates, that some countries were opening their jails, and that people from certain countries had faulty genes, all lies that Trump has repeatedly stated since his emergence on the political scene.
All that being said, I just read an interesting article in The Atlantic that attempted to turn the reasons each side of the political aisle support or reject the SAVE Act, on its head. The author believes that it may actually work against the GOP by requiring proof of citizenship to vote since the percentage of Americans with passports (and no, REAL ID is not acceptable to prove citizenship), the best proof of citizenship, are higher among people with more education and those that live in metropolitan areas, lower among the less educated and rural voters. Of course, this is just one person's opinion, but it is an interesting perspective on the debate concerning the SAVE Act. Here is a link.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/02/save-america-act-turnout/686145/?utm_campaign=atlantic-daily-newsletter&utm_content=20260226&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&lctg=67f130672e8e571a90087893&utm_term=The%20Atlantic%20Daily
Not withstanding that article, which in some ways is trying to extrapolate a change in the demographics of the American electorate, which demographics moved towards Trump and away from Harris, and what they might do this November, with or without the SAVE Act, it seems that the Senate will not pass the bill, assuming the GOP does not attempt to kill the filibuster. There just isn't 60 votes.
And, while Trump is threatening some type of executive order, it is unlikely that even today's conservative Supreme Court will allow him to create national voting rules when the Constitution clearly assigns that duty to the states.
The real question is, when will the mass hypnosis that has altered the viewpoint of so many Americans be broken? When will the lies about illegal voting, undocumented people, and stolen elections, stop being believed? When will America wake up to the simple fact that before Trump, we were actively creating new ways to vote, via mail, extended in person voting days, etc, and now we are actively trying to make it harder to vote purely due to the fact that Trump is a sore loser. And perpetual liar.
why undocumented don't vote
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/02/save-america-act-turnout/686145/?utm_campaign=one-story-to-read-today&utm_content=20260226&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&lctg=67f130672e8e571a90087893&utm_term=One%20Story%20to%20Read%20Today
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