{"id":48851,"date":"2026-03-05T09:15:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/?post_type=insight&#038;p=48851"},"modified":"2026-03-06T12:51:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T17:51:33","slug":"save-act-impacts-voting-rights-in-midterm-elections","status":"publish","type":"insight","link":"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/insights\/save-act-impacts-voting-rights-in-midterm-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"The SAVE Act Is the Wrong Way to &#8216;Nationalize&#8217; Elections. There&#8217;s a Better One."},"author":73,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","issue_tax":[540],"topic_tax":[140],"program_tax":[156],"project_tax":[],"person_tax":[2840],"podcast_show_tax":[],"insight_type":[3849],"fellowship_tax":[],"award":[],"class_list":["post-48851","insight","type-insight","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","insight_type-the-thread"],"acf":{"details":{"hero_type":"small-image","abstract":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">American elections need more federal consistency. But Lee Drutman says there\u2019s a better, nonpartisan way.<\/span>","subheading":"","read_time":"","watch_time":"","podcast_player":"","apple_podcast_link":"","spotify_podcast_link":"","podcast_link":null,"listen_time":"","youtube_id":"","":null,"featured_image":48852,"add_image_caption":false,"caption":"","pdf_version":null,"helper_taxonomies":{"issue_tax":[540],"topic_tax":[140],"program_tax":[156],"project_tax":false,"person_tax":[2840],"fellowship_tax":false,"event_type":false,"location":false,"insight_type":[3849],"award":false,"podcast_show_tax":false,"person_type":false,"demographic_key":false,"survey_topic":false,"organization":false},"media_inquiry":false,"media_inquiry_title":"","media_inquiry_email":""},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"add_background_color":false,"content":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/11\/us\/politics\/house-passes-voter-id-bill.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SAVE America Act<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which passed the House in February on a party-line vote, would require every American to produce a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brennancenter.org\/our-work\/analysis-opinion\/new-save-act-bills-would-still-block-millions-americans-voting\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twenty-one million Americans<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> don\u2019t have those documents. The bill provides <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bipartisanpolicy.org\/article\/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">no funding and no phase-in period<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/campaignlegal.org\/update\/save-act-threatens-all-voters\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">criminalizes election workers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> who make honest mistakes, requires states to submit their voter rolls\u2014or voter registration lists\u2014to the Department of Homeland Security. And it was passed by the same party that has spent half a century opposing federal control of elections.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SAVE Act\u2019s underlying premise, that American elections need more federal consistency, is not entirely wrong. But the legislation doesn\u2019t address the most pressing weaknesses in our current system, and in some cases, it produces new ones.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The United States runs roughly <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/political-reform\/reports\/america-needs-federal-elections-agency\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">10,500 separate election systems<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with different rules for registration, identification, and ballot counting. That patchwork is a real problem, making the ease of voting and even how much your vote counts vary wildly across the country.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The federal government is already playing a larger role in elections (whether Congress admits it or not): The Justice Department has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/03\/us\/politics\/trump-save-act-elections.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">demanded full voter rolls from multiple states<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brennancenter.org\/our-work\/analysis-opinion\/new-save-act-bills-would-still-block-millions-americans-voting\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DOGE personnel within the Social Security Administration shared voter data with an outside group seeking to overturn election results<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/25\/us\/politics\/trump-elections-midterms.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">FBI seized 2020 ballots from a Georgia election center<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. But the question is whether that role will be structured and nonpartisan, or improvised and weaponized.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On a recent podcast, President Trump suggested that Republicans should \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/03\/us\/politics\/trump-save-act-elections.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nationalize the voting<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d in at least 15 states. At the State of the Union, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lOhNFeSLhIs\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trump called upon the Senate<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to approve the Save America Act to \u201cstop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting.\u201d<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He has even <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7346834\/trump-canceling-midterm-elections-joking-white-house\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">floated canceling the midterm elections<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> entirely, which the White House dismissed as a joke. Two days after the House passed the SAVE America Act, he <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/elections\/trump-vows-voter-id-requirements-midterms-rcna259018\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">declared on Truth Social<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that there would be voter ID for the midterms \u201cwhether approved by Congress or not,\u201d threatening an executive order if the Senate failed to act.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea that non-citizens are voting is the bugbear that refuses to disappear. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bipartisanpolicy.org\/article\/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Utah recently reviewed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> its entire voter roll of more than 2 million registered voters. It found one noncitizen registration. Zero noncitizen votes.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When states have run their rolls through the federal SAVE database, just <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bipartisanpolicy.org\/article\/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">0.04 percent of cases<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are returned as noncitizens. Even that overstates the problem because the tool itself is a mess.<\/span>","":null,"drop_cap":false,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_pull_quote","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_pull_quote":{"display_variation":"small","quote":"The test is no longer whether you are a citizen. It is whether you have the right papers.","image":"","meta":{"name":"","role":"","work":""},"":null,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"add_background_color":false,"content":"<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2026\/02\/13\/save-voter-citizenship-tool-mistakes-confusion\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recent investigation by ProPublica and the Texas Tribune<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> found that DHS rushed the SAVE database into use, and then had to correct information sent to at least five states. A quarter of those flagged as potential noncitizens in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bipartisanpolicy.org\/article\/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Travis County, Texas<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, had already provided proof of citizenship. In Boone County, Missouri, officials barred flagged voters from casting ballots before verifying the data, which showed that more than half of those flagged turned out to be citizens. Voters flagged in error were also <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2026\/02\/13\/save-voter-citizenship-tool-mistakes-confusion\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">referred to DHS for possible criminal investigation<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. When <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/campaignlegal.org\/update\/save-act-threatens-all-voters\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kansas tried a similar documentary proof requirement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> between 2013 and 2016, it blocked 31,000 eligible citizens from registering\u2014roughly 12 percent of new applicants, while noncitizen registration ran at <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bipartisanpolicy.org\/article\/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">0.002 percent<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The test is no longer whether you are a citizen. It is whether you have the right papers, according to the administration\u2019s moving target.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When two-party competition becomes an existential zero-sum contest over the rules of the game itself, the incentive shifts from persuading voters to controlling the machinery of voting.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SAVE Act is the clearest expression of that incentive. But opposing it is not enough. We need to build a federal election system that actually works.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What would that look like? Here\u2019s my idea: an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/political-reform\/reports\/america-needs-federal-elections-agency\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">independent federal elections agency<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, structured like the Federal Reserve\u2014nonpartisan commissioners, staggered terms, independent funding, and insulated from the White House and Congress. Not another toothless advisory board. An agency with actual authority to set and enforce baseline national standards for voter registration, election security, and voting access. Setting floors rather than ceilings. Supporting local administrators rather than replacing them.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike the SAVE Act, which routes election control through a politicized Department of Homeland Security with zero independence safeguards, this agency would be built to resist partisan capture. Commissioners would be barred from party affiliation and subject to removal for violating their mandate. The whole point is to take election administration out of the partisan war.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The need is urgent. Turnover among local election officials hit <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/08\/20\/nx-s1-5503954\/turnover-election-officials-trump\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">41 percent in 2024<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the highest rate in at least 25 years, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.votebeat.org\/2026\/02\/03\/western-election-official-turnover-since-2020-issue-one-report\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">half of all counties in 11 Western states<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> have lost their chief election official since 2020. Veteran county clerks are quitting under threats to themselves and their family. Meanwhile, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.governing.com\/management-and-administration\/the-feds-cut-funding-for-election-cybersecurity-how-will-public-officials-adapt\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">federal election funding has collapsed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from $825 million in 2020 (including pandemic relief) to $15 million in 2025. The Trump administration froze election security support and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.governing.com\/management-and-administration\/the-feds-cut-funding-for-election-cybersecurity-how-will-public-officials-adapt\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">cut funding for the cybersecurity network<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> local officials used to share threat intelligence. The SAVE Act would pile criminal penalties onto an already hollowed-out workforce.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An independent agency would do the opposite: fund, protect, and professionalize the people who make elections work.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This agency could also do what the SAVE Act claims to do, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bipartisanpolicy.org\/article\/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">without disenfranchising millions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Rather than forcing every citizen to produce a passport at the registration counter, a federal agency would verify citizenship through government databases that already exist, putting the burden on the government rather than the voter. Back-end verification instead of front-end documentation. More accurate, less burdensome. And it would not require 21 million Americans to locate a birth certificate they may not have.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In February, the SAVE Act secured <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/congress\/trumps-election-bill-save-america-act-50-senate-votes-democrats-block-rcna259351\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">more than 50 Republican co-sponsors<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the Senate, but not the 60 votes to break a filibuster. Republican leadership is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/news\/politics\/2026\/02\/25\/mike-lees-save-america-act-hits\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">weighing whether to change filibuster<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> rules to wear down Democratic opposition. The bill will likely fail\u2014but those trumpeting the fraud narrative can easily spin a conspicuous legislative defeat into a talking point: \u201cWe tried to secure the elections and they wouldn\u2019t let us.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The midterms are eight months away. The patchwork is fraying. The partisan pressure to control the rules will only intensify. The question is no longer whether the federal government will play a larger role in elections. It is whether that role will be designed to strengthen democracy or to undermine it.<\/span>","":null,"drop_cap":false,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_add_component","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_authors","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_authors":{"":null,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_taxonomies","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_taxonomies":{"":null,"anchor_id":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_related","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_related":{"":null,"anchor_id":""}}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The SAVE Act is Bad for the Midterm Elections, Here&#039;s a Better Option<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The SAVE Act is the Trump administration\u2019s latest attempt to federalize elections. Lee Drutman argues for an independent federal elections agency instead.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newamerica.org\/insights\/save-act-impacts-voting-rights-in-midterm-elections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The SAVE Act Is the Wrong Way to &#039;Nationalize&#039; Elections. There&#039;s a Better One.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The SAVE Act is the Trump administration\u2019s latest attempt to federalize elections. 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