House passes SAVE America Act, sending Trump-backed election bill to the Senate (NBC)

[Munu]

House passes SAVE America Act, sending Trump-backed election bill to the Senate (NBC)

WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election bill that President Donald Trump is pushing Congress to enact.

The vote was 218-213, with Republicans unanimously voting in favor and all but one Democrat voting against it. The one Democrat voting yes was Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.

The 32-page legislation would require states to obtain documentary proof-of-citizenship “in person,” such as an American passport or birth certificate, from someone in order to register them to vote in a federal election.

The bill, which was revised from an earlier version to include new demands from Trump, also requires voters to show photo identification in order to cast a ballot in person. And it slaps new rules for mail-in ballots, requiring voters to submit a copy of an eligible ID when requesting and casting an absentee ballot.

...

[pat_k]

1. Any word on whether this one is as DOA in the Senate as the last version?

[drray23]

3. Schumer said its DOA they will fillbuster it.nt.

[pat_k]

11. Thanks!

[Lovie777]

2. Senate bill won't match the house one to a certain extent.................

so like ICE money bill, it will be in limbo.

[Initech]

4. How much fucking proof do these psychopaths need for you to vote?

It will never be enough. They will keep finding new ways to move the goalposts. It's time we stop coddling and start firing them.

[Tim S]

5. At least they're not asking for proof that you're a property owner.... yet

[Dulcinea]

8. If it was up to the MAGAts...

...only white male landowners would be able to vote.

[pat_k]

12. One reform I'd like to see is LINES equal FINES. Time is money, and lines are a poll tax.

Substantial fines for any jurisdiction with lines of more than 30-minutes that are the result of under-allocation of resources. Fines substantial enough to offset any "savings" the county or municipality may have reaped.

Same thing for drives to drop-boxes of more than 20 minutes. It should not take a person a round trip of more than 40 minutes to vote. And if that many drop-boxes are not feasible, then provide some other means of securely collecting ballots.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

6. Americans are just clamoring to have more red tape in their lives and fewer...

...pencils for school and dolls for Christmas.

“It’s just common sense. Americans need an ID to drive, to open a bank account, to buy cold medicine, to file government assistance,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters. “So why would voting be any different than that?”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-save-america-act-trump-backed-election-bill-rcna258614

Meanwhile....

Trump said, "No state in the country verifies United States citizenship as a condition for voting in federal elections."

The kernel of truth here is that the federal form to register to vote doesn’t require documentation to prove citizenship. But applicants who use that federal form, or register using state forms, must attest to being citizens. Voter registration forms warn applicants that signing the form with false information is a crime. There have been scattered cases of non-citizens who cast ballots, but among millions of votes cast they are statistically rare.

Some states told us that they access federal or state databases to verify citizenship of voters. Such methods have sometimes erroneously flagged citizen voters. While they are not foolproof, they do contradict Trump’s claim that no states verify U.S. citizenship for federal elections.

We rate this statement Mostly False.

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/07/do-states-verify-u-s-citizenship-condition-voting/6480041002/

We don't have a "people vote illegally" problem in this country; we have a "millions of people who are eligible to vote don't do it" problem.

The SAVE America Act will disenfranchise millions of eligible voters who do not have easy access to the documents required or the time to jump through the hoops.

I'm not sure Mike Johnson knows this however: a lot of those people vote R at the moment.

[pat_k]

13. I wouldn't be able to prove citizenship

My father's name on my birth certificate does not match the name on my social security card (Mom signed my sister and I up for SS with step=father's name, but he never legally adopted us.)

I've used my step-father's name my entire life. In common law, you can change your name by usage. It was never a problem. When the discrepancy came up, an affidavit was always fine. Until 9/11 that is.

NJ had some sort of "enhanced" driver's license requirements after 9/11. I went through the process to get a court-ordered name change. A major pain and expense (paying filing fees and paying to publish three rounds of public notices of the change from a name I had never used to the name I've always used). Unfortunately, I fucked up. The order I got from the court was a preliminary order. One more round of publishing a public notice was required to get the final order. I didn't understand this. The DMV accepted what I provided and issued the license. I didn't find out it wasn't a final order 'til I sent it in to get the name changed on my birth certificate. By that time, I'd missed the deadline and would have had to start the whole process over. But I had a valid license, so I said screw it. When I moved to WA they just took the NJ license as proof.

The process to get a name change here is WA is simpler, but it takes most of a weekday to file the papers and sit around to be heard by the judge. It was actually just about impossible for awhile because they were swamped with people who had to get a legal name change to get a REAL ID last year. I've got to do it, but these days I run a little solo dog walking service and just haven't been able to take a weekday off.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

14. I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. If passed this bill will impact millions in a similar way...

...I am sure. Especially married women:

For millions of married women who have taken their spouse's name, birth certificates may not match the legal names they now use. This was a concern when the SAVE Act was introduced before and one that prompted outrage last year from constituents who confronted their representatives — Republican and Democrat — over their support of the measure.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-the-save-america-act-would-make-major-changes-to-voting

That said, requiring an ID to vote enjoys broad support with the American public, so it seems inevitable there will eventually be some standard adopted.

Hopefully--as with many legislative initiatives--the reality on the ground will inform how the legislation is eventually implemented so that it doesn't negatively impact so many voters as to swing elections--despite the intentions of lawmakers.

[Sogo]

7. Is this the bill that requires women to have the same last name as their birth certificate, or some such that

would pretty much disallow any woman who had taken their husband's last name in marriage from voting....?

[edhopper]

9. Yep

[edhopper]

10. Would be thrown out

by a Supreme Court that followed the Constitution.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. MaddowBlog-Targeting elections, House GOP advances the SAVE America Act, a solution in search of a problem

The original SAVE Act was an indefensible step backward, and the revised version is worse. It passed the Republican-led House anyway.

Targeting elections, House GOP advances the SAVE America Act, a solution in search of a problem www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Philly Joe (@joehick58.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T00:19:32.092Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/save-act-elections-house-republicans-trump-johnson-voter-id

A couple of years ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson made a pilgrimage of sorts to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Donald Trump’s ring and hold a joint news conference with the then-former president. It was not, however, a simple photo-op: The Republicans unveiled a proposal they appeared to be rather proud of.

The GOP duo pitched legislation that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. The absurdity of watching two notorious election deniers pretend to be deeply concerned with the integrity of elections was a detail the political world was apparently supposed to overlook.....

The original SAVE Act was an indefensible step backward, and the revised version is worse:

All Americans would be required to prove their U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

Voters would be required under federal law to present identification when casting ballots in person or by mail, even in states that do not have voter ID laws.

Republicans are eyeing new restrictions on Americans who want to vote by mail.

The proposal is a classic example of a solution in search of a problem. Republicans have spent years desperately searching for evidence of systemic fraud in vote-by-mail systems, for example, and they’ve come up empty. The same is true about the supposed need for voter ID laws: In reality, there is simply no national scourge of people trying to cast ballots while pretending to be someone else.....

What’s more, as The Associated Press reported, state elections officials — from both parties — have expressed practical concerns about how these costly proposed procedures would be implemented and paid for. The same article added: “Voting rights groups have said married women who have changed their name could have trouble registering under the SAVE Act because their birth certificate lists their maiden name.”

Despite all of this, the bill passed the House anyway.

The proposal now heads to the Republican-led Senate, where it will need to overcome a 60-vote threshold, which seems exceedingly unlikely. That said, Politico reported this week that GOP leaders are so desperate to fundamentally alter how Americans vote that they’re exploring potential procedural changes that would make it possible to pass the regressive legislation, despite existing cloture rules.

There is no evidence of the type of voter fraud that the SAVE Act would prevent. It takes time and effort to get US citizens to go vote and so non-citizens are not going to risk arrest just to vote. The GOP and other groups have been looking for years for proof of non-citizens voting and have not found any such proof. The SAVE Act is a solution looking for a problem.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

16. MaddowBlog-Trump falsely claims that the U.S. is 'the only country that has mail-in ballots'

The president might be surprised to learn just how many longtime democracies with advanced economies rely on postal balloting without incident.

Trump falsely claims that the U.S. is ‘the only country that has mail-in ballots’
The president might be surprised to learn just how many longtime democracies with advanced economies rely on postal balloting without incident.

— Donna898 (@donna-f898.bsky.social) 2026-02-13T21:18:49.709Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-falsely-claims-that-the-u-s-is-the-only-country-that-has-mail-in-ballots

For many years, millions of American voters have cast ballots through the mail without incident. Secure systems were created in red states and blue states alike; the public found the practice convenient; the process has long featured reliable safeguards; and even the most ardent election conspiracy theorists struggled to uncover any meaningful evidence of fraud or irregularities.

Donald Trump has nevertheless convinced himself that postal balloting is a national scourge that needs to be dramatically curtailed.

Trump: "We're the only country in the world that has mail in ballots"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-02-12T19:09:59.328Z

....So, a few things.

First, I have no idea how Trump came to believe that voting by way of the mail is inherently corrupt. It’s not, and he has never offered anything resembling evidence to the contrary. He just keeps asserting the falsehood, apparently hoping that nonsense will become true by way of repetition.

If the president ever uncovers anything to bolster his claim, he’s welcome to present his findings to the public. In the meantime, however, his assertions are impossible to believe.

Second, the idea that no other country allows its citizens to vote through the mail is ridiculously untrue. Around the world, many countries, including longtime democracies with advanced economies, rely on postal balloting without incident.

30 countries use mail voting

— Ari Berman (@ariberman.bsky.social) 2026-02-12T21:21:07.509Z

Third, Republican Party officials, at both the state level and national level, have practically begged Trump to stop lying about this because they want the GOP base to take advantage of mail-in voting. The more the president pushes these false claims, the more his followers believe him, which in turn creates problem for Republicans.

Finally, the American mainstream appears to have already made up its mind: A Pew Research Center poll last summer found that a 58% majority of Americans favor allowing any voter to cast their ballot by mail if they want to.

I have been working on voter protection for a long time. After the SCOTUS gutted the voting rights act and Texas adopted voter id, the Democratic Party started encouraging Democratic voters to use voter id. Back in 2010, the GOP had three times the number of ballots cast by mailed compared to Democrats. Vote by mail used to be a major element of the GOP GOTV efforts. I remember getting vote by mail applications from GOP groups

trump is hurting a major element of the GOP GOTV plans.