The House of Representatives passed a measure that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, an effort to put into law one of Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting elections.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, passed by a vote of 220-208, with four Democratic members joining all Republicans present on Thursday.
The bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Chip Roy proposes amending the National Voter Registration Act to require states to obtain proof of citizenship in person from people who are registering to vote or updating their voter registration.
Voting rights advocates have warned that the measure, if passed into law, could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who do not have easy access to identification documents, and would upend how states register people to vote online or through automatic registration.
The measure — predicated on the GOP’s baseless claims that noncitizens are fraudulently voting in federal elections — would disproportionate impacts to women, rural and disabled voters, according to election law experts.
“The House has just passed one of the worst pieces of voting legislation in American history,” said Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. “The Senate must stop it. The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens. It should not become law.”
House Democrats Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Henry Cuellar and Ed Case voted in support.
The president — who continues to baselessly insist widespread voter fraud manipulated the outcome of the 2020 presidential election — has separately signed an executive order that, among other things, similarly requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
House Republicans — with five Democrats — passed a version of SAVE Act in 2024, after House Speaker Mike Johnson joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago to tie the president’s anti-immigration agenda to “election integrity.” Elon Musk had even suggested that anyone who voted against the bill should be executed for treason. “Those who oppose this are traitors,” he wrote on X at the time. “What is the penalty for traitors again?”
This is a developing story
