15 reasons the SAVE Act (H.R.22) is dangerous

I cannot stress enough how dangerous the SAVE Act (H.R.22) is. Much of this information is taken from the Center for American Progress's "The SAVE Act: Overview and Facts," which, at the time of me typing this, was last updated on Feb 3, 2026 as well as the Center for American Progress's "The SAVE Act Could Keep Millions of Transgender Americans From Voting," which was published in February of 2025.

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1. The SAVE Act "would require all American citizens registering to vote or updating their registration information to present documentary proof of citizenship in person. For the vast majority of Americans, this would be a passport or birth certificate"
2. Related to point #1, "[a]pproximately 146 million American citizens do not possess a valid passport—for context, 153 million Americans voted in the 2024 presidential general election"
3. Also related to point #1, "84 percent of women who marry change their surname, meaning as many as 69 million American women do not have a birth certificate with their legal name on it and thereby could not use their birth certificate to prove citizenship. The SAVE Act makes no mention of being able to show a marriage certificate or change-of-name documentation"
4. Still related to point #1, "[t]he SAVE Act poses a serious socioeconomic issue that would disproportionately impact working-class and lower-income Americans [...as o]nly 1 in 4 Americans with a high school degree or less have a valid passport [...and o]nly 1 in 5 Americans with income below $50,000 have a valid passport"
5. Additionally related to point #1, there are "as many as 3.3 million eligible [trans] voters" in the US. Although, "not all [trans people] who want to legally change their name are able to do so," given that "[t]he process varies by state but is often complex and time consuming," which then leads to "[t]ransgender people who do not legally change their name often face discrimination and even refusal of services because their ID does not accurately reflect their chosen name," those who have legally changed their name could be in real trouble if the SAVE Act passes as their current legal name may not match their birth certificate and they may not have a passport.
6. Related to point #4, if a trans person has not legally changed their name but those checking IDs believe that "their ID does not accurately reflect their" legal name, I believe being turned away from voting is quite likely as those officials may try to claim to the ID is fake (this is my own speculation, however)
7. "Government-issued driver’s licenses—including REAL IDs—as well as military or tribal IDs do not satisfy the bill’s requirements."
8. "The legislation would invert the responsibility to verify a person’s eligibility and citizenship status from election officials and the government onto every single American citizen, making citizens convince the government that they’re eligible to exercise their right to vote"
9. Related to point #8, "[u]nder the SAVE Act, Americans would have to go in person to their election office and present original or certified documentation to make any voter registration change"
10. Also related to point #8, "[v]oters could no longer mail in a voter registration application; they would still have to show up in person with documentation to complete registration. Notably, 3 million Americans registered to vote by mail, email, or fax in the 2022 cycle. Rural Americans would be particularly affected"
11. Still related to point #8, "[a]utomatic voter registration (AVR) administered through motor vehicle agencies and other state agencies would be severely gutted. Millions of online and mail motor vehicle agency transactions could no longer be used to update voter registration databases"
12. Additionally related to point #8, "for the 2022 cycle, of the 80.1 million* Americans who registered to vote or updated their voter registration, only 5.9 percent did so in person at an election office. Under the SAVE Act, tens of millions of Americans would likely be waiting in lines in election offices to update their voter registration information every election cycle. This would pose a significant barrier to voting and overwhelm election offices" (if you're curious what the * was for: "*Correction, February 3, 2026: This fact sheet has been updated to accurately reflect that 80.1 million Americans registered to vote or updated their voter information in the 2022 cycle")
13. "Online voter registration—a service 42 states rely on—would be upended or even eliminated. Notably, 8 million Americans used online registration in the 2022 cycle"
14. Related to point #13, "[v]oter registration drives would be eliminated, and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts would be upended"
15. Finally, the SAVE Act perpetuates the falsehood that voter fraud by noncitizens voting is a wide spread issue. "Studies have shown that noncitizen voting is essentially nonexistent in federal elections in the United States [...] A 2017 analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit, showed that election officials in 42 jurisdictions found only about 30 incidents of potential noncitizen voting in the 2016 election — among more than 23.5 million votes cast, or 0.0001 percent" ("No, noncitizens are not voting in droves." by Stuart A. Thompson, The New York Times, 10/28/24--if you don't have a New York Times account, but would like to read this article, let me know)

(Prompt by me)

Screen grab from Barack Obama's Instagram