With SAVE Act Stalled in Senate, Red States Carry Water for Trump’s Non-Citizen Voting Myth

Taking a cue from the Trump administration, as part of its ongoing efforts to suppress the vote and perpetuate the myth of non-citizen voting, red state lawmakers are introducing restrictive proof of citizenship bills in their state legislatures.

Experts tell TPM that it’s no coincidence that these various state-level bills have advanced just as the Trump administration is struggling to get Congress to pass both the SAVE America Act and the Make Elections Great Again Act, both of which seek to require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration in federal elections.

“You’re seeing states take this policy agenda and implement it in a way that perhaps hasn’t been able to pass at the federal level,” Chris Diaz, director of legislative monitoring at the Voting Rights Lab, told TPM.

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE America Act by a vote of 218 to 213. However, the bill is now stalled in the Senate due to the filibuster. A previous version of the SAVE America Act, the SAVE Act, failed to make it out of the Senate, so the fate of this current federal legislation remains uncertain. President Trump has been pressuring Republicans to change filibuster rules to pass the legislation, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has argued that there is no appetite for such action within the Republican conference at this time.

There are currently 26 active citizenship proof bills pending in 15 states, according to a Voting Rights Lab tracker.

Currently, three states – Florida, Utah and South Dakota – have recently introduced proof of citizenship bills that have passed at least one legislative chamber and could take effect later this year. In each of these cases, the law requires all voters to provide proof of citizenship as part of the basic registration process.

Last month, the GOP-controlled Florida House passed a documentary proof of citizenship bill. A companion bill is currently being considered in the State Senate. Both versions of the bill require citizenship status to be verified by Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle records.

In South Dakota, the Senate passed a similar bill requiring voters to provide documentary proof of their citizenship when registering to vote. The measure has not yet been approved by the House.

And in January, the Utah House also approved a documentary proof of citizenship measure. The bill also provides a process for election administrators who will be responsible for investigating a voter’s citizenship status.

“I think what we often see in these states is that there is an effort to send political messages that don’t necessarily align with the reality of election integrity or the needs of election officials,” David Becker, a former Justice Department attorney and executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told TPM.

Generally speaking, these bills, both at the state and federal level, perpetuate the myth that noncitizens vote in federal elections. There is no evidence to suggest that this is the case. And with nearly 21 million people of voting age lacking access to proof of citizenship documents, according to a 2024 survey by the Brennan Center, these proof of citizenship laws, which require a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, are expected to disenfranchise many eligible voters.

Although these bills are mostly passed in Republican-led states, experts expect Republican voters to be disproportionately affected by these proof of citizenship bills, according to a 2025 report from Secure Democracy USA. States that Trump easily won in 2024 have the largest percentage of voters without a valid U.S. passport, according to research from Secure Democracy USA.

“All available evidence shows that only eligible U.S. citizens vote in our elections,” said Andrew Garber, an attorney with the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program. “So these laws really won’t do anything from an election security standpoint. Our elections are already very secure and there are many systems in place at the state level in all states to ensure that that remains the case.”

These laws will also, as Becker pointed out, add an additional and costly level of bureaucracy to the voting process that election administrators will have to manage. All of these efforts will also impose a cost on taxpayers, with little benefit to election integrity.

“Like the SAVE Act, it would require citizens to regularly work to close the government’s loopholes, extracting and showing their citizenship papers over and over again when they have already shown them,” Becker said. “Why do we insist that citizens should work for the government, rather than the government working for us? »