The Irony of Trump’s SAVE Act

Vote here sign. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Donald Trump and his allies have been touting the “SAVE Act” as a measure to reduce what they claim is “rampant” voting by noncitizens. The SAVE Act, short for the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” would require people registering to vote in federal elections to document that they are American citizens.

The SAVE Act takes the form of a series of amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. However, its underlying philosophy is diametrically opposite to that of the earlier law. The findings and purposes of the 1993 act make it very clear that its purpose was to force states to remove their barriers to registering and voting, particularly among Black Americans living in the South.

By contrast, the SAVE Act would force states to make registration and voting more difficult by requiring that the registration application be accompanied by one of several documents, including a U.S. passport, a birth certificate or a so-called “enhanced” driver’s license.

Topping the list of documents to prove your citizenship is a U.S. passport. Current estimates are that about half of Americans have one. (A YouGov poll from last May found that when asked whether they had access to a passport, equal numbers said yes and no.) The half of the population without access to a passport could apply for one, which would involve paying an application fee, getting photos and waiting for the passport to arrive in the mail.

People lacking passports could look at the other documents listed in the SAVE Act in hopes that they might be easier to access. For instance, a birth certificate. It is unclear, however, how people whose name has changed, through marriage or other reasons, will prove that the name on the birth certificate is theirs.

A third document on the list is a driver’s license that has been “enhanced” to show U.S. citizenship. But these driver’s licenses are not available in Wisconsin, nor in most other states. They are currently available only in Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Vermont and Washington.

Who does the burden of the SAVE Act hit hardest? Ironically, it appears to fall disproportionately on residents living in states won by Trump.

Take the passport as an example. Although the U.S. State Department does not estimate the number of passports in circulation, it did publish a report listing the number of passports issued for each year between 2021 and 2025 for each state. Using that number and adjusting for states’ populations, each state’s passport density was calculated, shown on the vertical axis of the next graph. The horizontal axis shows the percentage of votes for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. Wisconsin is shown with the large yellow dot, suggesting that slightly less than 50% of Wisconsinites have passports.

The burden of the SAVE Act, the graph shows, falls harder on people living in states that voted for Trump. As the dotted trend line on the next graph shows, there is a negative relationship, on average, between the percentage of votes won by Trump and the percentage of each state’s population with a passport. In other words, the more support the state gave to Trump, the lower the percentage of people in the state who have a passport and wish to vote. In West Virginia, where about 70% of voters supported Trump in 2024, only about 22% of residents have a passport. In Maryland, where just 34% supported Trump in 2024, about 64% of people have a passport.

The five states where enhanced driver’s licenses are available are shown using red dots on the graph. Ironically, four of the five states voted for Harris in the 2024 election. The exception was Michigan, which, like Wisconsin, supported Trump by a tiny margin.

Passport density by state

Donald Trump has been adamant in his demand that Congress pass the SAVE Act, as reflected in his State of the Union speech:

And perhaps most importantly, I’m asking you to approve the SAVE America Act, to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections, the cheating is rampant in our elections. It’s rampant. It’s very simple. All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote.

The version of the SAVE Act passed by the U.S. House falls short of Trump’s demand to end mail-in ballots:

And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military or travel. None.

On Truth Social, Trump expands on this theme:

America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World. We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer. I am asking all Republicans to fight for the following:

SAVE AMERICA ACT!

1. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. (IDENTIFICATION!).

2. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN ORDER TO VOTE.

3. NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!).

All attempts to measure voting by noncitizens have concluded that such voting is very rare. It is unclear whether Trump believes his own claim that voting by noncitizens is “rampant,” despite the lack of evidence supporting this.

Another irony is that Trump’s attempt to have the federal government override state and local control of elections runs squarely counter to standard conservative doctrine favoring local control. His willingness to violate conservative principles reflects a belief that adding obstacles, making registering and voting more difficult, reduces Democratic votes more than Republican votes, leading to Republican victory. The data on passports suggests that may not be true.

Trump’s recent executive order giving the Postal Service administrative responsibility for mailed-in ballots is unlikely to be approved by federal courts. However, the fact that Trump issued that order may indicate that he has given up hope that the SAVE Act will ever become law.