Eliyahu Gasson | editor-in-chief

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act is under consideration in the U.S. Senate after passing the House of Representatives, setting up a national debate over voter identification and citizenship requirements in federal elections.

The legislation would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require voters to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship in person to register to vote.

Acceptable documents under the bill include: A valid U.S. passport, a REAL ID driver’s license indicating citizenship, a government-issued ID showing birthplace or citizenship or a photo ID presented with a birth certificate or naturalization records.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan liberal law and policy organization, 21.3 million Americans don’t have proof of citizenship readily available, and at least 3.8 million don’t have these documents at all.

Standard driver’s licenses or state IDs might not be sufficient on their own since they don’t usually indicate citizenship status. Voters would also need to provide citizenship documentation whenever they update their registration information, such as after a move or a name change.

That would make it harder for married women, immigrants who have changed their last name and transgender people to register to vote, said Ruth Quint, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh.

“We just think that not only is that unfair, it would be a big bureaucratic nightmare that would disenfranchise so many people for no reason,” she said.

Quint said the bill could also affect students’ ability to register if they live in a different state or don’t have the necessary documents with them.

“Do these students have their birth certificate with them? Do they have their passport with them?” she said. “That would disenfranchise students at a university. It would disenfranchise people who move frequently, which would be younger people.”

It’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.

Current law requires that people registering to vote swear they are a citizen under penalty of perjury. Non-citizens who lie about their status when registering face fines, imprisonment and deportation. Supporters of the bill argue that measure isn’t enough to protect the integrity of elections.

A 2022 voter roll audit in Georgia found 1,634 cases of non-citizens attempting to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, about 65 per year. A 2024 audit in Idaho found that 36 out of 1 million registered voters were likely non-citizens.

Under the current law, voter registration is handled by the states. Joseph Sabino Mistick, an associate professor at the Thomas R. Klein School of Law, said the bill could shift authority over elections from the states to the federal government, which would undermine the decentralized election systems in which states and counties currently administer voting.

“That’s important because, as a result of that … anyone who would want to interfere in any way with our elections, would have to interfere right here in Pennsylvania in 67 different counties and across the nation, in every county, in every state,” he said.

In a statement to The Duke, Allegheny County Spokesperson Abigail Gardner said the county’s elections are “managed safely and securely including showing valid forms of ID when necessary.”

“The SAVE Act is just another tool used to suppress the vote ahead of the midterms rather than address the Trump Administration’s inhumane immigration actions or rising cost of living that voters are rejecting,” Gardner said.

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu