By Kyle Jackson
The SAVE Act is promoted as a way of safeguarding voting, limiting potential voter fraud, and protecting federal elections— requiring proof of citizenship at the polls.
However, this act is a speciously worded document, using the guise of voting safeguards to promote a passive means of voter suppression.
On Feb. 11, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, was passed through the Republican-led House of Representatives. As of now, the Senate has yet to take action on the bill.
This act, created by Republican Representative Chip Roy and supported by President Donald Trump, is designed to amend the Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person legal documentation that meets the requirements of the Real ID Act of 2005, in order to participate in federal elections.
The Real ID Act of 2005 was designed to prevent terrorist activity in light of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The SAVE Act also greatly restricts mail-in ballots, making it so only select cases, such as people with disabilities, active military service personnel, and citizens traveling, are able submit votes via the mail.
This act is a prime example of how our political climate has entered an era of extremes.
Political actions and, more importantly, reactions have become bolder and more aggressive toward opposition in both Trump administrations.
The recent 2026 State of the Union, given by President Trump, painted the Democratic party as villains, with the president even stating, “These people are crazy, I’m telling ya, they’re crazy…Boy oh boy, we’re lucky we have a country with people like this — Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time.”
These extremes have negatively harmed Americans, international relations, and political credibility, with entire political debates being based on discrediting the opposition.
The SAVE Act was created in response to President Trump’s consistent and unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. The act itself would discredit the polls, irreversibly harming Americans’ views on voting.
Officials who support the act claim that it would be a way to prevent fraudulent voting from foreign sources and illegal immigrants from affecting the outcome in federal elections.
ID and other identifying documents are already required to be presented when registering to vote, making the requirement to show ID at the ballot box to prevent illegal voting redundant. In addition, a study from the University of Maryland found that as many as 21 million eligible voters don’t have easy access to documents proving citizenship.
This act would result in the suppression of millions of Americans, immigrant or not, from participating in federal elections due to a lack of access to documentation. Additionally, other restrictions, such as for mail-in ballots, further limit voting accessibility, lowering the number of potential voters.
Voting numbers in America historically have been on the lower end of the spectrum, with even the most recent presidential election only having approximately 65.3% of Americans voting. With the upcoming midterms, due to the irreparable damage from Republican discrediting and the SAVE Act potentially being in effect, this number is likely to decrease dramatically.
This act not only demonstrates how Republican reactions have become extreme, but also how lawmakers and politicians can utilize pressing issues to their own political agenda.
Reducing accessibility to the polls skews the results and decreases voting variety due to certain segments of the population being passively barred.
In addition, with the current ramp-up of ICE operations, people of any ethnicity are concerned about ICE being placed at the polls for the midterms. ICE’s deportation track record hasn’t always been consistent, with citizen arrests happening on multiple occasions. That isn’t to mention the killings of Alex Pretti, Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz, Renee Nicole Good, and five others.
The SAVE Act has yet to be voted on by the Senate as of this article. However, Democratic senators have expressed their distaste.
“The SAVE Act’s goal is disenfranchising over 21 million Americans and making it harder for eligible people to vote, particularly low-income Americans and people of color. That’s the truth,” said Democrat Chuck Schumer on X, “The SAVE Act is dead on arrival in the Senate. Senate Democrats will not sign on to stripping the right to vote from tens of millions of American citizens.”
No matter your political stance, the idea of having voting restricted by the federal government is authoritarian and a violation of every American’s right to vote.
