Fighting Back Against Voter Suppression Efforts: Updates on SAVE 2.0 and Trump’s Most Recent Attack on Voting

By Zaria Guignard, Manager of Census and Civic Engagement

The Senate has failed to advance the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, a harmful piece of legislation that threatens the freedom to vote of all Americans. In February, the House narrowly passed the SAVE America Act by a vote of 218 to 213, a deeply disappointing outcome. The bill was then sent to the Senate. The Senate debated the bill on the Senate floor for weeks, but moved away from the SAVE America Act to debate and pass the budget resolution to clear the way for a reconciliation package. An amendment offered to attach the SAVE America Act to the reconciliation bill failed with four GOP senators voting against adding the bill to the budget reconciliation package.

This is the second time the legislation has failed to move forward in the Senate. A previous version of the bill failed last year. Widespread opposition and massive public backlash have stalled the bill once again. Thank you to those who participated in Advancing Justice | AAJC’s action by sending letters, calling members of Congress, or sharing the action with friends and family members. Those participating in our action sent 460 letters to members of Congress, including 298 letters to senators and 162 letters to representatives. We’re grateful to every representative who voted against the SAVE America Act and every senator who fought back against it. While the fight isn’t over, we should pause to recognize this important victory, one that pushes back against ongoing voter suppression efforts. This shows how powerful our collective efforts are in protecting voters and ensuring access to the ballot.

The so-called SAVE America Act would prevent millions of eligible U.S. citizens, including a disproportionate number of Asian Americans and other communities of color, from accessing their right to vote by:

1. Requiring voters to show documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections

The Bill would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. For many, that would mean producing a passport or birth certificate every time they register or re-register to vote. More than 21 million eligible voters don’t have these documents readily available. Some Americans are more likely than others to lack these documents, including the millions of married women who change their names (i.e., their documents don’t match), younger voters, and voters of color. Proof of citizenship requirements have an amplified effect on Asian Americans, specifically due to the high rates of immigration and naturalization in the community,74.4% of Asian American adults are foreign-born, and 47.6% have naturalized.

Naturalized citizens often do not have their certificates of naturalization or lack ready access to them, making it hard or impossible to get or apply for a U.S. passport. There are myriad reasons for this; documents like naturalization papers were not designed to be carried like a driver’s license or passport. Documents might be in the home of another family member, kept in safe deposit boxes, or in home storage, and subsequently lost, destroyed, or stolen. They also face additional fees to obtain a replacement Certificate of Naturalization, which currently requires $555 and takes around 8.5 to 11 months to process, or a passport, which can cost a minimum of $130 and take four to six weeks to get. These onerous requirements impose undue obstacles on lawful voters.

1. Requiring voters to show photo ID when casting a ballot

As noted by the Center for American Progress, the SAVE America Act ID requirement is stricter than current state voter ID laws in all but one state, Ohio. Of the 35 other states that already have voter ID laws, voting would become even harder. Additionally, the use of student IDs is not permitted under the SAVE America Act, as well as any ID that does not have an expiration date.

The voter ID requirement in the SAVE America Act would drastically impact mail voting. Mail voters would be required to include a printed copy of their voter ID with their request for a mail ballot, as well as with their completed ballot. Elections in the eight states that allow elections to be conducted by mail, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, would be subverted during a midterm election year. The bill would also make it harder for the millions of Americans living in states where voters request mail ballots. This is incredibly concerning for the Asian American community, which tends to vote by mail at higher rates. Current Population Survey (CPS) reports for the November 2024 election indicate that 46.5% of Asian Americans who voted in the election chose to vote by mail. Contrast that with Hispanic voters who chose to vote by mail 33.7% of the time, 28.6% for non-Hispanic White voters, and 19.0% for Black voters. Similarly, the 2024 Asian American Voter Survey found that nearly half of Asian American voters (46%) prefer voting by mail or dropping their ballot off, instead of voting in person.

*Calculations based on U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey Public-Use Data, November 2024

2. Leading to widespread voter purges

The SAVE America Act will inevitably lead to widespread voter purges as states would be directed to recklessly purge their voter rolls, putting lawfully registered citizens at risk of being disenfranchised. Notably, the SAVE America Act fails to mandate that registered voters be notified before being removed from the voting rolls. Voters who are wrongfully purged under the SAVE America Act may remain unaware until they arrive to cast their ballot and discover they are no longer registered. History shows that these kinds of heedless removals will include eligible voters because they have. In 2024, erroneous purges in Alabama, Virginia, Ohio, and Texas disenfranchised thousands of lawful voters, potentially impacting the 45,717 eligible Asian American voters in Alabama, 391,634 in Virginia, 165,274 in Ohio, and 847,676 in Texas.

• Calculations based on U.S. Census Bureau, 2021 ACS 5 Year Estimates, Sex by Age by Nativity and Citizenship Status

3. Requiring states to submit their voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on a regular basis, creating a federalized surveillance system of citizens

Last year, Texas shared its voter rolls voluntarily with the Department of Homeland Security using a tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), which mistakenly flagged voters as noncitizens. As reported by the Texas Tribune, “[Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements] SAVE has made persistent mistakes, particularly in assessing the status of people born outside the U.S., data gathered from local election administrators, interviews, and emails obtained via public records requests show.” This is deeply troubling for Asian American voters due to the high rates of immigration and naturalization in the community. Given the persistent errors the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements tool makes, attempts to expand the use of the tool should be rejected due to the risk of disenfranchisement.

Similar to the SAVE America Act, an Executive Order (EO) titled *Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections *issued on March 31, 2026, targets vote by mail by imposing sweeping changes to election procedures nationwide that would disenfranchise eligible voters across the nation. The EO seeks to use the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to create a federalized surveillance system of citizens. The EO directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), working with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to use the SAVE program to “compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State (State Citizenship List). “It further improperly directs the independent United States Postal Service (“USPS”) to create its own list of approved mail voters and to treat certain ballots as ineligible for delivery based on whether voters are included in this federally created list of enrolled voters. In effect, the Order seeks to require a federal screening regime between voters and the ballot box by empowering a mail carrier to withhold certain voters’ ballots. In doing so, the Order displaces the roles that the Constitution and federal law assign to the states and Congress to regulate elections and to USPS as a neutral, nondiscriminatory carrier of the mail.”

The U.S. Constitution assigns authority over federal elections to the states and Congress — not the President. That’s why Advancing Justice | AAJC, along with other coalition partners, filed a lawsuit challenging this Executive Order as “an illegal and dangerous attempt by the Trump administration to eliminate accessible voting options and subvert our democracy by seizing control of election administration from the states and Congress. If implemented, it would disenfranchise eligible voters across the nation.” This order is just the latest attempt at executive overreach in the president’s crusade to roll back voting rights. We know proponents of the SAVE Act will continue to push the legislation and other attacks on the freedom to vote, but Asian American advocates will continue to fight back against voter suppression efforts.

At Advancing Justice | AAJC, we’ll always fight back when voting rights are under attack. You can share your opposition to the EO by signing ACLU’s petition: https://action.aclu.org/petition/stop-president-trumps-unconstitutional-attacks-our-elections