Save Act would require all Americans prove citizenship when registering to vote

This article contains an update.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation would require all Americans to prove their citizenship status by presenting documentation—in person—when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. Specifically, the legislation would require the vast majority of Americans to rely on a passport or birth certificate to prove their citizenship. While this may sound easy for many Americans, the reality is that more than 140 million American citizens do not possess a passport and as many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.

Because documentation would need to be presented in person, the legislation would, in practice, prevent Americans from being able to register to vote by mail; end voter registration drives nationwide; and eliminate online voter registration overnight—a service 42 states rely on. Americans would need to appear in person, with original documentation, to even simply update their voter registration information for a change of address or change in party affiliation. These impacts alone would set voter registration sophistication and technology back by decades and would be unworkable for millions of Americans, including more than 60 million people who live in rural areas. Additionally, driver’s licenses—including REAL IDs—as well military or tribal IDs would not be sufficient forms of documentation to prove citizenship under the legislation.*

Existing election integrity measures

Federal law already clearly states that it is illegal for non-U.S. citizens to register to vote or cast a ballot in federal elections. It’s an existing crime that is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Election officials also already use state and federal data—including citizenship data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration—to verify an individual’s eligibility to cast a ballot. What the SAVE Act would do is invert the responsibility to verify a person’s eligibility and citizenship status from election officials and the government onto American citizens.

It’s also critical to note that there are already documentation requirements to be able to register to vote. As required by federal law, Americans must provide either the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver’s license number on a voter registration application in order to provide election officials with the necessary information to verify their identity and voting eligibility. The SAVE Act seeks to upend this process and turn a relatively well-oiled system—where officials are tasked with the work of verification—and, instead, make every single American citizen put in the work, time, and resources to exercise their constitutional right to vote and convince the government that they’re eligible.

Half of American citizens do not have a valid passport

In addition to setting voter registration back to the preinternet era, the SAVE Act threatens the constitutional rights of American citizens, as tens of millions of citizens do not possess the documentation required under the bill.

According to statements and data released by the U.S. Department of State, approximately only half of American citizens possess a passport. This means that half of all American citizens would not be able to provide one of the primary acceptable forms of documentation that would be required to register to vote under the SAVE Act.

Nationwide, approximately 146 million American citizens do not possess a passport. To put that number into perspective, 153 million Americans cast a ballot in the 2024 presidential general election.

In seven states, less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport: West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. And only in four states do more than two-thirds of the citizens have a valid passport: New York, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey. In West Virginia, the state with the lowest rate of citizen passport possession, only about 1 in 5 citizens—or 20.7 percent—possess this documentation. Conversely, New Jersey has the highest rate of citizen passport possession, with 4 in 5 citizens—or 80 percent—possessing a valid passport.

Overall, data shows that high rates of passport ownership are predominantly concentrated in blue states, while low rates of passport ownership are overwhelmingly concentrated in red states. This means that, under the SAVE Act, it would be disproportionately more difficult for American citizens in red states to present one of the primary forms of documentation required to register to vote—and they would be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill became law.

Additionally, Americans who have completed less education as well as Americans with lower incomes are far less likely to have a passport than Americans with higher levels of education or higher income levels. Among Americans whose highest level of education is a high school degree or less, approximately 1 in 4 have a valid passport. Among Americans with a household income below $50,000, only 1 in 5 have a valid passport. The policies in the SAVE Act are a serious socioeconomic issue that would disproportionately impact the voting rights of working-class and lower-income Americans.

The vast majority of married women cannot present a valid birth certificate

While the vast majority of Americans have a birth certificate, tens of millions of married women could not present their birth certificate as proof of citizenship under the SAVE Act, as it does not display their current legal name.

A survey from the Pew Research Center found that 79 percent of American women married to men have taken their spouse’s name. When women who have hyphenated their surname are also accounted for, 84 percent of American women have changed their surname.

Nationwide, approximately 69 million women could not use their birth certificate to prove their identity or citizenship status under the SAVE Act. Additionally, 5 percent of married men have also changed their surname, accounting for approximately 4 million men nationwide who could also not present an acceptable birth certificate under the SAVE Act. The legislation does not mention the potential option for these Americans to present change-of-name documentation or a marriage certificate in combination with a birth certificate to prove their citizenship. This shows yet another area in which the legislation makes no attempts to ensure that citizens’ voting rights are protected. Seemingly, the SAVE Act would rather err on the side of disenfranchisement.

The same Pew survey found that the two groups of women most likely to take their spouse’s name were conservative Republican women and Republican/Republican-leaning women, while the two least-likely groups were liberal Democratic women and Democratic/Democratic-leaning women. In fact, Democratic and Democratic-leaning women are twice as likely as Republican and Republican-leaning women to have kept their maiden name, with only 7 percent of conservative Republican women reporting that they kept their last name. So while the legislation would unfairly disenfranchise women as a whole, the requirement to present a birth certificate would disproportionately disenfranchise conservative and Republican women.

While the SAVE Act does not directly aim to deny millions of American women the right to vote, it certainly does not treat their right vote as sacred and remains ignorant to the fact that requirements of the legislation threaten to infringe on the voting rights of millions of Republican, Democratic, and independent women across the country. As with numerous pieces of federal legislation and policy, the impacts on women are an afterthought and their rights are viewed as inconsequential.

Conclusion

Congress has a pivotal constitutional responsibility in ensuring that all citizens can exercise their right to vote in a secure and accessible manner. Many Americans have continued to voice concerns regarding election integrity, and elected representatives should be responsive to these concerns in a manner that ensures the ballot box remains accessible for the citizens they represent. As written, the SAVE Act is irresponsible and dangerous legislation that threatens to disenfranchise millions of American citizens—Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike.

The only Americans who stand to benefit from the SAVE Act are out-of-touch politicians willing to trample on the rights of millions of citizens, including their own constituents, in order to score a few political points with the media and the administration.

For detailed tables including the data depicted above, please see here.

*Update, February 3, 2025: The legislation states that “a form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the Real ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States” can be used to prove citizenship. However, the Real ID Act of 2005 does not include a federal requirement for Real IDs to indicate citizenship status, and no state’s Real ID indicates citizenship status on the card. Legally residing noncitizens can also get a Real ID. As it stands, this is an unworkable provision of the legislation, unless the standard for Real IDs is federally changed. Similarly, as tribal and military IDs do not indicate citizenship status, they need to be shown in conjunction with other documentation that does, meaning that alone, they do not satisfy the bill’s requirements. 

Methodology

The U.S. State Department has published state-by-state data on passport issuance for fiscal years (FY) since 2020 and the overall number of passports issued nationwide for FYs since 1996. For FYs 2020-2024, the authors found how many passports were issued in sum for every state over that five-year period. Utilizing the same data, the authors found the average percentage of passports issued nationwide for each state over that same five-year period. For example, from FYs 2020-2024, West Virginia issued a total of 175,000 passports compared to the total 79,830,000 passports issued across all 50 states over that five-year period. This means that, on average, West Virginia issued 0.22 percent of passports nationwide over five years. Using the calculation of average share of total passports issued, the authors estimated the number of passports each state issued between FYs 2015–2019, years for which data was not reported on a state-by-state basis by the State Department. This was necessary in order to estimate the total number of valid passports in circulation, given that an adult citizen’s passport is valid for 10 years. This methodology is based on the assumption that, while volumes of passport issuance vary due to various factors (such as the decline in passport issuances during coronavirus pandemic, which still needs to be accounted for in the number of valid passports in circulation), each states’ individual shares of nationwide passport issuances should remain relatively consistent across a five-year period.

In order to estimate the number of passports issued in FYs 2015–2019, the authors applied the average nationwide share for each state to the total nationwide number of passports issued as reported by the State Department for those years. For example, in FY 2019, the State Department reported that 17,794,977 passports were issued nationwide. The authors calculated that if West Virginia issued 0.22 percent of those, it would have issued 39,023 passports that FY. Data for FYs 2015–2019 was calculated using this methodology for each state in each FY.

Once the total number of passports issued in each state over the last decade was calculated, the total was divided by the total reported citizen population of each state to estimate the percentage of that state’s citizen population that have a valid passport. Data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) was used to calculate each state’s total citizenship population based on the number of U.S. born citizens and the number of naturalized citizens reported for each state.

As children who are citizens can get passports but there is no data publicly available to filter out the number passports issued by states to those under 18, passports issued to children are included in the data and the number of citizens also includes minors. Therefore, it is accurate based on this data to say for example, that “only 20.7 percent of West Virginia citizens possess a valid passport.” Additionally, passports issued for those under 16 years of age are valid for five years. This means that a 13-year-old with a passport could use that to register to vote for the first time at 18. Likewise, 14-, 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds issued a passport could also use that document to register to vote upon turning 18. Therefore, it is important to consider children in this passport possession data for voting purposes under the SAVE Act to some extent.

To estimate the number of female citizens in each state that do not possess a birth certificate that displays their current legal name due to a marital name change, the authors needed to determine how many female citizens are currently married or have been married at some point in each state. It was important to not only account for currently married women but also separated, divorced, and widowed female citizens, as many in the later three groups do not change back their surname to their maiden name as would be displayed on their birth certificate. The authors were not able to find reliable data for how many female citizens change their surname back to their maiden name following separation, divorce, or death of their spouse.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s “American Community Survey 5-Year Estimate table on the Selected Characteristics of the Native and Foreign-Born Populations” breaks down the rate of each marital categorization (never married, now married, divorced or separated, widowed) for all citizens 15 years and older by citizenship status (native-born citizens and naturalized citizens) for each state. Based on the survey, the authors calculated (1) how many currently married, divorced or separated, and widowed native-born citizens there are in each state, and (2) how many currently married, divorced or separated, and widowed naturalized citizens there are in each state. The total number of currently and previously married citizens in a state was determined by multiplying the combined percentages of married, separated, divorced and widowed populations by the total citizen population for native and for naturalized citizens separately. These were then added up.

For example, in Alabama, the ACS survey reported 3,943,617 native-born citizens over the age of 15. It reported that 46.8 percent of them are married, 14.2 percent are divorced or separated, and 7 percent are widowed. This means that there are a total of 2,681,660 native-born Alabama citizens 15 years and older who are married, divorced or separated, or widowed. Similarly, the process was repeated for the 77,953 Alabama naturalized citizens using the reported percentages for each marital status category for that population. In total, this means that there are currently 2,747,062 married, divorced or separated, and widowed 15 years and older citizens in Alabama.

That total figure for each state was divided by two to account for the likely number of women in that population accounting for them as one half of all marital status couples since the vast majority of U.S marriages are opposite-sex marriages. According to the Census Bureau, there were only approximately 710,000 same-sex marriages nationwide as of 2021 compared to approximately 62 million married couples nation-wide, meaning that same-sex married couples account for only 1.1 percent of married couples nationwide. For the accuracy of these estimations, therefore, all couples were assumed to be opposite-sex marriages. For the ultimate purposes of calculating the number of women who have changed their surname upon marriage, it is also accurate to account for some same-sex couples as many of them also change or hyphenate their surname.

The authors then relied on findings by the Pew Research Center that found that 84 percent of women in opposite-sex marriages changed their surname after getting married (79 percent took their husband’s name and 5 percent hyphenated). The authors applied this rate to the estimated number of female citizens who are or have been married at one point in each state. For example, if there are 2,747,062 citizens 15 years and older in Alabama and half of those are female and 84 percent of those women changed their surname upon marriage, it means that there are 1,153,766 female citizens in Alabama 15 years and older who have changed their surname.

This also means that there are 1,153,766 female citizens in Alabama 15 years and older who do not possess a birth certificate that displays their current legal name and could therefore not use that documentation to prove their citizenship status under the SAVE Act. While only Americans 18 years or older are able to cast a ballot, since marriages under the age of 18 make up such a small number of marriages nationwide they should be deemed statistically insignificant. As of 2021, there were approximately 300,000 married minors in the U.S. accounting for approximately just 150,000 or (0.18 percent) of the 81,772,763 married female citizens 15 years and older.

Therefore, this population is a good representation of the voting-age citizen population that would not be able to use a birth certificate for voter registration purposes under the SAVE Act. Similarly, the Pew survey found that 5 percent of men took their spouse’s last name.

Using the total number of estimated currently or previously married male citizens above, the authors calculated that 5 percent of that total estimated population would be approximately 4 million men.