“SAVE Yourself? The Voters Left Behind by the SAVE Act”

By: Olivia Dill

Introduction

As President Lyndon B. Johnson, the man who signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, once said, “Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.”^[1] Sixty years later, a new Republican bill currently in the Senate could undo decades of voting rights progress.^[2] The SAVE Act, otherwise known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, could block more than 21 million Americans from voting if enacted.^[3]

Prior to this bill, voters could register in almost every state by “swearing or affirming in writing under penalty of perjury that the person is a citizen.”^[4] The new SAVE Act would require that voting applicants present identification and/or proof of citizenship that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 in order to be eligible to vote in federal elections, meaning a valid driver’s license, a passport, or a birth certificate.^[5] The list of acceptable IDs would be “more restrictive than voter ID laws in every state but Ohio.”^[6] The problem? 20.76 million U.S. citizens of voting age do not have current or non-expired driver’s licenses.^[7] Through stricter voter identification requirements, the SAVE Act would create a serious rift in the U.S. democracy and election integrity.

The Progress of Voting Rights in the U.S.

The U.S. has a long history of voter suppression and the fight against it. Early voting regulations established that only land-owning white men could vote in the U.S. Then, as states gained the ability to create their own voting laws, other classes such as commoners gained this right.^[8] Next came the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited the denial of voter registration for race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.^[9] States subsequently created loopholes like Mississippi’s “Grandfather Clause,” which provided that only those whose grandfathers were qualified to vote before the Civil War could vote.^[10] This cut voter registration eligibility among Black men from 90% to 6%.^[11] Various other restrictive voting practices followed under the Jim Crow Laws, including poll taxes, literacy tests, and English-language requirements targeted at Black Americans, immigrants, and low-income individuals.^[12] After pressure and advocacy from Martin Luther King Jr., and other brave protestors during the peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, President Johnson finally signed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) into law.^[13] This Act outlawed the most prevalent forms of voter suppression and created a mechanism for federal oversight of municipalities with histories of voter discrimination.^[14]

The Downfall of the Voting Rights Act’s Protections

Nearly 50 years after the VRA was passed, Shelby County v. Holder struck down voter protections in historically suppressive voting jurisdictions, creating modern loopholes for voter suppression^[15] The Voting Rights Act was enacted to “address entrenched racial discrimination in voting” by, in part, creating a system that required that “states or political subdivisions that maintained tests or devices as prerequisites to voting, and had lower registration or turnout, in the 1960s and 1970s,” would need preclearance from the federal government to enact changes in their state voting procedures.^[16] The Supreme Court held that the VRA’s restrictions on Shelby County, along with the other “covered jurisdictions,” were unconstitutional and removed them.^[17]

Shelby was the soft launch of modern day voter suppression, which ultimately led to the SAVE Act. Immediately after Shelby, for example, Texas and Georgia–former federally monitored states under the VRA–closed polling places in predominantly Black and Latino communities.^[18] Then, Florida enacted a requirement that convicted felons to pay all of their court fines and fees before their right to vote was restored, creating a “back door cancellation of rights that had been extended to predominantly people of color.”^[19] What is even worse is when voting rights are restricted at the federal level.

Mass Voter Suppression in a SAVE Act World

The meticulous requirements for voters to prove their citizenship under the SAVE Act would suppress millions of American voters. About 28.6 million Americans lack licenses with both their current addresses and names.^[20] Married women, for example, who fail to update their last names on their licenses or adults who do not change their addresses after moving within the same state would fail to qualify. In addition, just over 2.6 million adult U.S. citizens do not have access to a form of government-issued photo ID.^[21] Half of Americans do not even have a passport, and millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate.^[22]

These restrictions affect people of color and people of low economic status at an even higher rate. Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately less likely to have current driver’s licenses.^[23] Specifically, 25% of adult Black Americans and Hispanic Americans and 20% of Asian/Pacific Islander Americans don’t have driver’s licenses with their current name or address.^[24] Younger Americans are the group least likely to have driver’s licenses with their current names and addresses. For example, 41% of Americans between the ages of 18-24 and 28% between 25-29 to be exact. Further, 50% of Black Americans ages 18-29 don’t have identification with their current names and addresses, and 30% don’t have licenses at all.^[25] The last major group that would lose their voting rights at significantly high rates is Americans with low education and income levels. 41% of Americans without a high school degree do not have current licenses, and 35% don’t have licenses at all.^[26]

Other similar bills are detrimental to voting rights. Another similar SAVE Act bill, called the Make Elections Great Again Act, would require proof of citizenship and proof of residence, mandate voter roll purges every 30 days, and prohibit mail-in voters from submitting applications to receive a ballot.^[27] Unhoused people, in particular, without permanent addresses would completely lose their right to vote. Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, said that a Polymarket prediction said that Democrats are favored to win control of the Senate in 2026:“Let’s turn this around by passing SAVE America.”^[28] The SAVE America Act would require states to hand over their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security, allowing them the opportunity to monitor and potentially remove the names of registered voters from opposing parties.^[29] Much to Senator Lee’s despair, proposed SAVE Act regulations are not party specific, though roughly 23% (23 million) of Democrats and 16% (15.7 million) of Republicans would be affected.^[30]

Evidently, any variation of the SAVE Act would create 21st century voting restrictions that would inhibit millions of Americans’ ability to vote. As of December 2025, nearly 47 million voters have been run through the SAVE Program at DHS, and the Administration is already flagging and purging American voters. “Many won’t even know there’s a problem until they show up on election day, and they’re turned away because even though they’ve been voting there for years and years, all of a sudden, they’re not on the list,” pleaded Senator Alex Padilla of California.^[31] Senator Padilla and the SAVE Act’s opponents must win the fight to dismantle the bill, or voter suppression will rule U.S. elections once again.

^[1] WATCH: Padilla: “So-Called SAVE America Act Would Be a Huge Step Backwards for Our Country,” Alex Padilla, U.S. Senator for California (Mar. 19, 2026), https://www.padilla.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/watch-padilla-so-called-save-america-act-would-be-a-huge-step-backwards-for-our-country/ [https://perma.cc/Z2C8-W7EH].

^[2] Id.

^[3] Michael Waldman, SAVE Act Reaches Senate, Brennan Center for Justice (Mar. 17, 2026), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/save-act-reaches-senate [https://perma.cc/AT2C-4XHD].

^[4] SAVE Act 2025, Fair Elections Center (2025), https://fairelectionscenter.org/advocacy/save-act-2025/ [https://perma.cc/32LL-43XF].

^[5] H.R. 22, 119th Cong. (2026).

^[6] Eliza Sweren-Becker and Owen Bacskai, New SAVE Act Bills Would Still Block Millions of Americans From Voting, Brennan Center for Justice (Mar. 20, 2026), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/new-save-act-bills-would-still-block-millions-americans-voting [https://perma.cc/3SYP-FDRQ].

^[7] Jillian Andres Rothschild, Samuel B. Novey, and Michael J. Hamner, Who Lacks ID in America Today? An Exploration of Voter Access, Barriers, and Knowledge, Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (June 2024), https://cdce.umd.edu/sites/cdce.umd.edu/files/pubs/Voter%20ID%20survey%20Key%20Results%20June%202024.pdf [https://perma.cc/T4WU-YDPA].

^[8] A History of Voter Suppression, National Low Income Housing Coalition (Sep. 23, 2020), https://nlihc.org/resource/history-voter-suppression [https://perma.cc/7HLE-3ZKK].

^[9] Id.

^[10] Id.

^[11] Id.

^[12] Id.

^[13] Id.

^[14] Id.

^[15] Shelby Cnt., Ala. v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529, 529 (2013).

^[16] Id.

^[17] Id.

^[18] Matt DeRienzo, Analysis: New and Age-Old Voter Suppression Tactics at the Heart of the 2020 Power Struggle, The Center for Public Intergrity (Oct. 28, 2020), https://publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/ballotboxbarriers/analysis-voter-suppression-never-went-away-tactics-changed/ [https://perma.cc/V95E-SYF4].

^[19] Id.