THE SAVE AMERICA ACT: STRENGTHENING PROTECTIONS FOR FEDERAL ELECTIONS

BACKGROUND

The SAVE America Act strengthens protections for federal elections by pairing two core safeguards: 1) requiring documentary proof of United States citizenship at voter registration and 2) requiring photo identification at the point of voting. AFPI has documented instances of non-citizen voter registration and voting, and has recommended proof-of-citizenship requirements and stronger voter list maintenance as key safeguards. Consistent with that work, the Act directs enhanced list maintenance to remove non-citizens from voter rolls and provides enforcement tools to ensure compliance, including reliance on established list maintenance databases that AFPI has urged officials to utilize. AFPI has also found that photo identification requirements improve election integrity and voter confidence without suppressing turnout, and the Act would implement this safeguard for federal elections by requiring photo ID when casting a ballot. In practice, the SAVE America Act shifts election administration away from self-attestation and toward objective verification.

The predecessor bill to the SAVE America Act, the SAVE Act, is nearly identical to this piece of legislation. The SAVE Act contained the same requirements for documentary proof of citizenship at voter registration and the voter list maintenance provisions to remove non-citizens from voter rolls, but it did not have the photo voter ID provision. By pairing front-end verification (registration) with back-end verification (voting), the SAVE America Act strengthens confidence that lawful votes are counted without dilution.

Another election integrity bill, the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, includes all of the same provisions that SAVE and SAVE America have, plus many more, including requiring ballots to be received by the close of polls on Election Day, a prohibition on ranked choice voting, and a prohibition on ballot harvesting. (A side-by-side comparison of these three election integrity bills can be found in an appendix on the last page of this bill analysis.)

THREE WINS IN THE SAVE AMERICA ACT

• Documentary Proof of Citizenship at Registration
• The SAVE America Act requires applicants to present documentary proof of United States citizenship in person when registering to vote in federal elections. It also defines what qualifies as acceptable proof, including a U.S. passport; certain REAL ID-compliant identification that affirmatively indicates citizenship; military ID indicating citizenship; or a Federal or State government-issued photo ID that either indicates citizenship or is accompanied by separate documentary proof of citizenship.

• Presenting Photo Identification for Voting
• The SAVE America Act requires voters to present an eligible photo identification in order to vote in federal elections. It provides narrow alternatives for voters who do not possess qualifying ID, but keeps the core rule simple and enforceable: the default expectation is that voters show valid photo identification before casting a ballot. It also establishes a clear, uniform standard for what qualifies as acceptable photo identification in federal elections.

• Removal of Noncitizens from Voter Registration Rolls
• The SAVE America Act strengthens voter list maintenance by directing States to identify individuals on the voter rolls who are not U.S. citizens and remove them from existing registration lists. It reinforces this requirement with documentary standards and enforcement mechanisms designed to ensure that ineligible registrants are detected and cleaned from the rolls rather than left in place indefinitely. The enforcement provisions are intended to ensure these requirements are not optional and are applied consistently across jurisdictions.

Appendix A:

Side-by-Side Comparison of SAVE vs. SAVE America vs. MEGA

The following table compares the election integrity measures contained within each piece of legislation.