The Latest Republican Efforts to Make It Harder to Vote in the Midterms
In the years since, I have thought of that day every time Republicans in Congress have floated the misleading name Saving America’s Voters (TO SAFEGUARD) Act. They did it in 2024, 2025 and most recently last month, when its latest iteration, the TO SAFEGUARD America Act, passed the House on almost purely partisan lines, with only one Democrat – Henry Cuellar of Texas – crossing the aisle. It now goes to the Senate, where Maine’s Susan Collins has pledged to be the fiftieth Republican to support it. That means that if Republicans can find a way to get around the sixty-vote threshold needed to bring the bill to a vote — by, say, eliminating the filibuster — Vice President JD Vance would vote to break the tie, President Donald Trump would sign it, and the TO SAFEGUARD The America Act would become law. On Sunday, Trump threatened to veto any legislation brought before him until TO SAFEGUARD The America Act passed, writing on Truth Social: “As President, I will not sign any further bills until this one is passed, NOT THE EDULATED VERSION – GET GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER ID AND PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY. »
Threats aside, there may be other ways to get these types of provisions adopted in the TO SAFEGUARD America Act, like completely bypassing Congress. A year ago, President Trump issued an executive order titled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of America’s Elections, which required proof of citizenship to register to vote and decimated mail-in voting. That order was overturned by summary judgment last October, but a proposed new order goes even further. This plan was spread by a group of Trump supporters who continue to claim interference in the 2020 election, including Peter Ticktin, a Florida-based lawyer who has known Trump since high school. According to Washington Jobthey “expect their project to appear in the executive order promised by Trump on the issue”.
The plan calls on Trump to immediately take control of state elections, overriding their constitutional authority, by declaring a national emergency based on the claim that China interfered in the 2020 election. (The Job notes that an intelligence study found that China considered “efforts to influence the election, but did not follow through on them.”) “Under the Constitution, it is legislatures and states that actually control how a state conducts its elections, and the president has no authority to do that. But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin told the Job. “This causes a national emergency that the president must be able to address.” The proposed order would require all voters to re-register for the 2026 midterm elections, with proof of citizenship in hand.
On February 27, Trump told a PBS reporter that he had “never heard of” the project. Yet in a Truth Social article two weeks earlier, he wrote: “I have delved into the depths of legal arguments that have not yet been made or considered on this subject, and I will present a compelling one in the very near future. There will be voter ID for the midterm elections, whether or not they are approved by Congress!”
Disenfranchising voters who seem likely to vote for the other party is a long-standing Republican project. Under Trump, that effort — including his call on Dan Bongino’s podcast for Republicans to “nationalize the vote” — has focused on another claim, that noncitizens engage in voter fraud. Susan Collins justified her support for TO SAFEGUARD America Act, saying that “there have been incidents recently where people have called municipal clerks and asked, ‘How can I convince a friend of mine who is from another country to vote here?’ And we’re not hearing a clear answer that only U.S. citizens can vote in U.S. elections.” But, as NPR recently reported, “non-citizen voting occurs occasionally, but in tiny numbers, and in an uncoordinated manner.”
This reality has not dampened Republicans’ zeal to fan the specter of “illegal aliens,” as the president calls them, infiltrating and corrupting the democratic process. An even more restrictive bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, and currently pending in the House, Make Elections Great Again (MEGA), would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and a government-issued ID to vote in person. Opponents of both bills say requiring government ID is a burden on workers, people of color, students (because school IDs are not acceptable), and older Americans. If this statement seems exaggerated to you, consider the experience of my mother, a citizen who has voted in every election for the past seventy-five years. It’s hard to believe that his foiled attempt is an anomaly. And what about someone who works a nine-to-five job and is unable to travel to a DMV or county clerk’s office during work hours?
