President Trump blew up what could have been a win for his party — and he did it to force lawmakers to pass an elections overhaul bill that has been all but doomed in the Senate.
On Wednesday, Trump abruptly canceled a scheduled signing of bipartisan legislation aimed at bringing down housing costs, saying he would only sign it after Congress approved the SAVE America Act.
This move wasn’t entirely surprising because Trump has been saying for months that he won’t sign any bill until the SAVE America Act is passed.
His obsession with the SAVE America Act has already scuttled the reauthorization of a surveillance tool and nearly ruined GOP efforts to increase immigration enforcement spending.
The SAVE America Act currently doesn’t have the needed 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster – and Republican leaders are reluctant to get rid of the filibuster to pass the bill, as Trump has suggested.
A big reason Trump has been obsessed with getting the SAVE America Act sent to his desk for signature ahead of what could be a pretty bruising midterms for the GOP, is that he believes it would ensure that Republicans never lose another election for at least 50 years.
Much of this belief is based on false claims that Democrats only win elections because of noncitizen participation in elections, which according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, and many experts, is extremely rare.
But the president’s case for the SAVE America Act is rooted in this misinformation. Here’s what’s in it:
1. It requires proof of citizenship to register to vote
The SAVE America Act specifically prohibits states from accepting and processing voter registration applications in a federal election “unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.”
Citizenship is already required to register to vote in the U.S. and states have a system to make sure that noncitizens do not make it on to the voter rolls. And when the system fails, it fails in a very limited number of cases.
And the list of what is acceptable to prove citizenship under the SAVE America Act is fairly limited. It includes U.S. passports and birth certificates, as well as some state and tribal IDs. This documentation is prohibitive in some cases: 1 in 10 eligible voters, or 21.3 million people, said in a national survey conducted by a voting rights organization that they either “do not have or could not quickly find” proof of citizenship records.
Trump has tried to require proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote via executive order, but that effort was permanently blocked by a federal court on Wednesday.
2. It requires photo ID to cast a ballot
The bill requires that voters show one of these valid forms of identification to cast a ballot in person. Notably, it also requires that people voting by mail provide “a copy of a valid photo identification” with their ballot.
If they can’t do that, they have to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number and sign an affidavit from state officials that says they were unable to get an ID “after making reasonable efforts to obtain such a copy.”
Voter ID requirements are largely popular among voters. And most states require some form of ID to vote, already. However, voters aren’t as supportive of a sweeping overhaul that would change various aspects of American elections.
3. It requires that state officials remove noncitizens from their voter rolls
States routinely check their voter registration list for people who shouldn’t be there – whether it’s people who passed away or who lost their voting rights due to legal trouble.
And that also includes those who were improperly registered. However, when states have tried to identify and purge alleged noncitizens from their rolls, their efforts have gone wrong in some cases.
4. It requires that states submit their complete voter rolls to the Trump administration
States would have to turn over complete, unredacted copies of their voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.
These voter lists contain sensitive voter data like driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, which is why many states have refused to turn over this information when the Trump administration began asking for them last year.
The Department of Justice has since been suing states across the country to obtain these lists, but the courts have consistently blocked those efforts.
A federal court also recently ruled that the Trump administration’s expanded SAVE system is unlawful and cannot be used in its current form.
5. It creates new penalties against election officials
Lastly, the SAVE America Act creates a private right of action against an election official who registers someone who didn’t provide proof of citizenship. It also establishes new criminal penalties against officials who register people without citizenship documents.
