As the Republican push to pass the SAVE America Act has stalled in Congress, even amid growing pressure from President Donald Trump, efforts are underway at the state level to fill the gaps.
Lawmakers in a dozen states have pushed legislation this year that would require residents to prove their U.S. citizenship to register to vote or bring a photo ID to the polls, according to the Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan group that tracks election legislation. Those requirements are two of the central pillars of the SAVE America Act.
The latest example comes in Florida, where the Republican-led Legislature is poised to pass a bill this week requiring election officials to confirm voters’ citizenship through government databases when they register to vote or update their registration, as well as during list maintenance. If a voter’s eligibility is in question, proof of citizenship will be asked.
The legislation, once it reaches Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk for his signature, would largely take effect next year, after the midterm elections.
Bills to add proof of citizenship requirements to voter registration have also passed both legislative chambers in South Dakota and Utah, where they await the signatures of their Republican governors.
Mississippi lawmakers in both chambers of the Legislature passed bills that would require some voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. They will have to reconcile amendments to the legislation before it can be sent to the state’s Republican governor for his signature.
In Iowa, state Senate Republicans passed a bill that would ask some voters for proof of citizenship and sent it to the House. And in Kansas, House Republicans passed a similar bill.
Additionally, new voter ID restrictions are being considered and have been approved by at least one legislative chamber in eight states, according to the Voting Rights Lab: Utah, Iowa, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Idaho, Arizona and Kentucky.
Voter impersonation and non-citizen voting (the problems these bills seek to address) are extremely rare and already illegal. But election experts warn that these proposals would affect large sectors of American citizens without easy access to the documentation that the bills require of voters.
More than 9% of voting-age U.S. citizens do not have proof of citizenship documents available, according to a study commissioned by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The domestic version of the SAVE America Act has become a particular focus for Trump in recent weeks. After the bill passed the House last month, it has languished in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass, but Republicans only control 53 seats.
Trump has said he would not sign any other legislation until the SAVE America Act is passed. He has also called for unrelated restrictions on gender-affirming health care and transgender participation in sports to be added to the bill.
“I’m not going to do anything until they get it,” Trump told NBC News on Monday.
Meanwhile, states with Republican-dominated state legislatures have adopted similar measures.
Florida’s bill would add proof of citizenship requirements and limit the types of identification voters can show to cast a ballot. The state has had a voter ID requirement on the books for years, but this bill would prohibit people from using student IDs, debit or credit cards, public assistance cards and nursing home IDs to prove their identity at the polls.
Democrats and voting rights advocates have noted that some voters may not have easy access to other forms of identification. They also warn that many voters may not have a certified birth certificate or official documentation detailing the name changes that would be necessary to prove their citizenship.
“More than a million Florida voters could receive letters from their supervisor of elections informing them that they have 30 days to submit documentary proof of citizenship, or they could be removed from the voter rolls,” said Florida League of Women Voters President Jessica Lowe-Minor.
Lowe-Minor said her figure comes from applying an estimate that 9% of Americans do not have easy access to proper documentation to Florida’s voting-age population. The vast majority of Florida driver’s licenses are already REAL-ID compliant, meaning the citizenship of millions of voters is already registered. It’s unclear how many voters don’t have driver’s licenses in the state.
Lowe-Minor said a league member had been unable to help her retired mother obtain a state ID because she had been married three times in another state and no longer had the decades-old documents documenting her name changes. Democratic state Rep. Ashley Gantt told a story on the House floor about her aunt, who was born at home during the Jim Crow era and did not have a birth certificate.
“The right to vote should not depend on whether someone can afford to track down expensive, decades-old documents,” Democratic state Sen. LaVon Bracy Davis said during a debate on the Florida Senate floor.
But the bill’s Senate sponsor, Republican state Sen. Erin Grall, rejected efforts to expand acceptable IDs for voting, arguing that people could print fake IDs and impersonate other people to vote.
“We have seen technological changes over the years, almost anyone can print an ID card at home,” he said during the debate. “They could be the ones in charge of printing them for their homeowners association.”
Republican state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, who sponsored the bill in the House, said the proposed list of IDs was designed to align Florida’s bill with the national SAVE America Act.
“When you go to the polls for election integrity reasons, we want to make sure you are who you are and that no one has stolen your identity,” he said. “So our list would match what Congress is currently considering in the SAVE America Act.”
Outside of Florida, bills vary. Legislation in South Dakota and Utah would require voters to have or show proof of citizenship to continue voting in state elections. Both would adopt a bifurcated election system like Arizona, where courts ruled that the state could not prevent voters without proof of citizenship from registering and voting in federal elections.
Currently, ten states have strict photo ID requirements for voters at the polls, although almost all do not go as far as those laid out in the SAVE America Act. Dozens of states, including Florida, have a looser ID requirement at the polls, and many of the bills lawmakers are considering this year aim to tighten those rules even further.
In New Hampshire, lawmakers want to eliminate the use of student IDs at the polls, while bills in Arizona and Missouri would add new ID requirements for mail-in voters.
