The Republican-controlled House of Representative has passed the bill, requiring voters to provide US citizenship proof in the November midterm elections.
The bill was approved on Wednesday on a mostly party-line vote, 218-213. Now, the legislation will be sent to the Republican-led Senate where it faces an uncertain future.
It is possible that the bill will die in the Senate as the legislation needs 60 votes to move forward. In the case of disagreement between two parties, these votes are hard to get.
What changed?
- Titled SAVE America Act or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, the bill would only allow those people to vote in elections who would prove their citizenship mostly through a valid US passport or birth certificate.
- The voters would also be obliged to show a valid photo identification before casting ballots.
- In the case of non compliance in registering the voters, the election officials will be subjected to criminal penalties.
According to Republicans, the citizenship check is necessary to prevent voter fraud. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump claimed that a lot of people in the US have been involved in illegal voting in federal elections.
Who will benefit from the bill?
According to Democrats, only Republicans will benefit from the Save America Act. The bill will not only disproportionately affect millions of US voters but also help Donald Trump to concentrate electoral powers in his hands.
Democratic leaders argue that the new law is a strategic move on the part of Republicans to make voting harder and jeopardize their chances of winning the majority in the House.
Representative Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House committee that oversees elections, said, “The SAVE America Act is part of a comprehensive Republican strategy to cement power this year. Speaker Johnson wants to make it harder for Americans to vote, easier for Washington Republicans to control how elections are run.”
SAVE America Act: creating barriers for voters
In addition to hardening the position of Republicans in mid term elections, the bill will disenfranchise millions of Americans by making the voting process inaccessible.
Experts also weighed in who argued that voter fraud is “extremely rare” during the national elections and non-US citizens are also barred from casting vote in federal elections.
The left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law reported that millions of US citizens lack ready access to passports, birth certificates, and other prerequisite documents to prove their citizenship.
The Congressional Black Caucus has called the bill “voter suppression bill” as the legislation is nothing more than an effort to undermine the right to vote ahead of 2026 midterm elections.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib said “the bill is a sheer attempt to rig elections.”
Which segments are more affected?
According to voting rights groups, the bill would create hurdles for millions of married American women and others who have changed their legal names because of marriage or assimilation.
As per estimation, around 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name.
According to Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez, “In history women marched and protested to get the right to vote in 1920 and we are not going to let them take this right away from us.”
Moreover, LGBTQ+ people will also be affected in the US if they have not registered their changed names.
Other upcoming elections measures
As reported by Reuters, Republicans are also preparing another election bill called the Make Election Great Again Act, that would allow the use of paper ballots and restrict mail-in ballots and ranked-choice voting in federal elections.
