The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, commonly known as the SAVE America Act, is a bill that would enforce stricter restrictions on voting and voter registration across the country. The bill, being pushed by the Trump administration, has caused substantial backlash for its intense changes that many argue would disenfranchise minority groups.
The bill requires voters to present valid photo identification proving citizenship, such as a U.S. passport, U.S. birth certificate or a Real ID-compliant verification. The legislation essentially ends universal mail-in voting, requiring all those who wish to vote via mail to submit an application.
Critics of the bill argue new restrictions will have distinct negative impacts on women, Americans with disabilities, Black Americans, working class Americans, rural Americans, students and older Americans, according to a fact sheet from the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, specifically addressed the impact that will be felt on rural Ohioans if the bill passes.
“Rural Ohioans are almost twice as likely as urban Americans to lack access to a birth certificate or passport,” Miller said. “Each Ohio County only has one board of elections, which can mean long travel times for rural residents, and if they need public transit, it might be nearly impossible to get across the county.”
Requiring in-person registration also impacts older Americans, Americans with disabilities and younger Americans, who all might have trouble locating and traveling to an elections office.
Miller also mentioned women will likely face difficulty proving citizenship due to many married women having changed their names. She said at least 75% of the 3.5 million married women in Ohio changed their name, which creates difficulty in proving citizenship.
Another concern people have is mandating a passport, which typically costs about $165. According to a 2024 study from the Center for American Progress, only 37% of people in Ohio have a valid passport, meaning more than 7,233,000 Ohioans do not.
By requiring voters to buy a passport, critics have compared the SAVE America Act to poll taxes, legislation from the 1890s that aimed to prevent African Americans from voting by requiring payment to vote, which was abolished in the 24th Amendment.
“There's court precedent that says when you are mandating specific photo ID or documentation proofs, that cannot come with an associated cost, there has to be free or no-cost options for folks,” Collin Marozzi, advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, said. “And I haven't seen anything in the SAVE Act that creates a free ID mechanism or a free birth certificate renewal or re-issuance mechanism.”
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 11% of people of color who are of voting age are not able to easily access documents proving citizenship.
Miller discussed the impact college students and younger Americans will see.
“College students move more frequently than other age groups, and that means they have to update their voter registration regularly,” Miller said. “Every single time they did that, they would have to go to the Board of Elections and prove their citizenship. We have 1.5 million residents who are under the age of 29 that could be impacted that way.”
In a TruthSocial post from March 17, President Donald Trump expressed the importance of the legislation and said he will never endorse any congressmember who votes against it, calling them “sick, demented or deranged.”
“The Save America Act is one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress, and America itself,” Trump said in the post. “NO MORE RIGGED ELECTIONS! Voter I.D., Proof of Citizenship, No Rigged Mail-In Voting.”
Pamela Kaylor, professor of instruction of communication studies at Ohio University, said proponents of the bill, including Trump and his administration, argue the new legislation is necessary to crack down on voter fraud from both citizens and non-citizens.
Kaylor aimed to refute that, pointing to evidence found by The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank commonly known for publishing the conservative “Project 2025” book. The data shows 63 instances of voter fraud in Ohio and 1,620 instances of voter fraud in the entire country between 1982 and 2025.
“Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, and most of the time it's not done by non-citizens,” Miller said. “When we see allegations of voter fraud, most of the time it's natural-born citizens who are trying to vote in multiple states. This bill would do nothing about that.”
The SAVE America Act is not the only attempt from the Trump administration to crack down on voting laws. Marozzi mentioned all three legislative efforts.
“There's the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act and then Making Elections Great Again, the MEGA Act,” Marozzi said. “All three of those, if they were to pass, would be the single largest voter restrictions ever passed by Congress; it would fundamentally reshape the election system in the United States of America.”
A previous iteration of the bill, the SAVE Act, passed the House in April 2025, but stalled in the Senate and the MEGA Act remains in the House. The SAVE America Act passed through the House on Feb. 11.
