President Donald Trump is pressuring Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act before lawmakers leave for their August recess, even calling on them to abolish the filibuster if necessary.
Despite the pressure, Republicans still don’t have the votes to move the legislation forward. But after four failed attempts in two years, they’re once again looking for a legislative vehicle to make it law.
About 80 percent of women who marry change their last names, meaning millions could be forced to produce additional paperwork to prove both their identity and citizenship before registering to vote or updating their registration. Students, military families, naturalized citizens, voters with disabilities, Americans who have recently moved, and trans Americans who have changed their names would also face new barriers to casting a ballot. And all of it is aimed at solving a problem that election officials and researchers have repeatedly found is extraordinarily rare.
Once voters understand those consequences, support for the legislation drops sharply. Polling shows that while “proof of citizenship” sounds popular in theory, support falls into net opposition once Americans learn that many eligible voters would need to track down documents like passports or birth certificates just to register or update their voter registration.
Nevertheless, Republicans continue searching for a path to enact the SAVE America Act. Will millions of eligible Americans, especially women, soon face new obstacles to exercising their fundamental right to vote?
This story is updated regularly as Congress and the Trump administration continue efforts to enact the SAVE America Act.