Sources · The SAVE America Act Is Not Voter ID
Every claim in the video, and where it comes from.
The video quotes the bill directly and puts its figures on screen. This page gathers those sources in one place, in the order the video makes them. Every quoted line of the bill comes from the engrossed text of H.R. 22 and H.R. 7296 at congress.gov.
The bill, and the two versions of it
H.R. 22, the SAVE Act, passed the House 220 to 208 on April 10, 2025, and requires documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Congress.gov, H.R. 22 (119th Congress). Full text: congress.gov/…/house-bill/22/text.
After it stalled in the Senate, Rep. Roy introduced an expanded successor, H.R. 7296, the SAVE America Act, on January 30, 2026. It passed the House 218 to 213 on February 11, 2026. It keeps every word of H.R. 22's registration requirement and adds a photo-ID requirement to cast a ballot.
Congress.gov, H.R. 7296 (119th Congress).
Every bill quotation shown on screen is verbatim from the engrossed text (H.R. 22, BILLS-119hr22eh; H.R. 7296 §3 for the photo-ID cards). The registration language of H.R. 22 is carried into H.R. 7296 unchanged.
Engrossed bill text via congress.gov and H.R. 7296 text.
How popular voter ID and the SAVE Act are
Voter ID is supported above 80 percent. Gallup found 84% of U.S. adults favor requiring photo ID to vote (Oct. 2024). Pew found 83% favor a government-issued photo-ID requirement, including 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats (Aug. 2025).
Gallup, Eight in 10 Americans Favor Photo ID Laws; and Pew Research Center, Majority Continue to Back Voter ID.
A majority support the SAVE Act. A Feb. 25 to 26, 2026 Harvard CAPS / Harris poll of 1,999 registered voters found 71% support, including 91% of Republicans, 69% of independents, and 50% of Democrats.
The documents most people don't have
A standard REAL ID does not prove citizenship. Lawful non-citizens can get one, including permanent residents, visa holders, and people with TPS or DACA, and the card does not say whether the holder is a citizen.
DHS, REAL ID FAQs; and PolitiFact, Can voters use REAL ID to satisfy the SAVE Act? (Apr. 18, 2025).
DHS runs the REAL ID program. In a sworn federal court declaration, DHS said a REAL ID can be unreliable for confirming U.S. citizenship.
DHS declaration (Dec. 2025), reported by Reason, DHS Says REAL ID Is Too Unreliable to Confirm U.S. Citizenship.
The only driver's licenses that show citizenship are Enhanced Driver's Licenses (EDLs), which are issued only to citizens. Exactly five states issue them: Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington. PolitiFact counts six if you add Idaho's contested optional marker.
DHS, Enhanced Drivers Licenses: What Are They?; and PolitiFact (Apr. 18, 2025).
Even in the state that issues the most, most people do not have one. Washington borders Canada, and about a third of its cardholders hold an EDL (2.26 million). The other two-thirds carry a standard license.
Washington State Dept. of Licensing, 2025 Q3 Workload Report, dol.wa.gov.
About half of Americans have no passport (on the order of 48–53% held a valid passport in 2024).
USAFacts, How many US passports are in circulation (summarizing U.S. State Department data).
In a 2023 national survey by the Brennan Center, the University of Maryland's CDCE, and VoteRiders (SSRS, 2,386 citizens age 18 and up), 9.1% of voting-age citizens lacked ready access to any documentary proof of citizenship. That is about 21.3 million people. About 52% of registered voters had no unexpired passport in their current legal name.
Brennan Center, 21.3 Million American Citizens Don’t Have Ready Access; and Univ. of Maryland CDCE, Which U.S. citizens lack easy access to documentary proof of citizenship.
About 79% of women in opposite-sex marriages took their husband's last name (Pew, 2023). By the Center for American Progress's estimate, as many as 69 million U.S. women have a birth certificate that no longer matches their current name. The video does not say these women cannot vote. It says the requirement adds a hurdle.
Pew Research Center (Sept. 7, 2023); the ~69 million figure via Center for American Progress and NPR.
The end of registering by mail, online, or at the DMV
The bill requires documentary proof of citizenship to be presented in person. For covered applicants that ends registration by mail, online, or at the DMV. An applicant who submits the mail form “shall not be registered… unless… in person.” Motor-voter (DMV) registration is made “subject to” the same proof requirement.
SAVE Act text, new NVRA §6(e)(1)(A) and §5, via congress.gov.
About 37 million Americans registered or updated their registration by mail, online, or at a registration drive in the two years before the 2020 election. That is roughly one in three.
Brennan Center, The SAVE Act Would Hurt Americans Who Actively Participate in Elections.
The name-mismatch process, and the criminal penalties
The bill directs each state to set up a process for applicants whose documents do not match. It calls for an attestation under penalty of perjury plus “other evidence,” judged by an official. It sets no federal standard for what counts, and provides no funding.
SAVE Act text, new NVRA §8(j)(2)(A), via congress.gov.
The bill creates new criminal offenses. One is for an election official who registers an applicant who fails to present documentary proof. Another is for a federal employee who provides “material assistance” to a non-citizen attempting to register. NVRA §12 penalties include fines and up to five years' imprisonment.
SAVE Act text, new NVRA §12(2)(B) and (C); penalties at 52 U.S.C. §20511.
Purges built on databases that are wrong about citizens
The bill directs states to remove non-citizens from the rolls “at any time” on “documentation or verified information,” drawing on databases (DHS SAVE, SSA, state DMV records, and others).
SAVE Act text, new NVRA §8(k) and §8(j)(4), via congress.gov. On SAVE’s design and gaps: USCIS, SAVE program.
These database matches are error-prone. When North Carolina audited its rolls, people its DMV records flagged as non-citizens were confirmed U.S. citizens about 97.6% of the time.
North Carolina State Board of Elections, 2016 Post-Election Audit Report (dl.ncsbe.gov).
Real purges have flagged citizens. Alabama's 2024 effort flagged 3,251 people and purged at least 717 confirmed U.S. citizens before a court halted it. Texas's 2019 list of about 95,000 “suspected non-citizens” was mostly wrong. Tens of thousands on it were naturalized citizens, and the list was rescinded.
Alabama via Campaign Legal Center / Democracy Docket; Texas via Brennan Center, There’s Good Reason to Question Texas’ Voter Fraud Claims.
From the voter roll to a deportation file
The bill connects a suspected-noncitizen flag to immigration enforcement. DHS “shall conduct an investigation to determine whether to initiate removal proceedings,” and federal agencies must hand over information within 24 hours, in batches.
SAVE Act text, new NVRA §8(j)(5)(D) and §8(j)(5)(A), via congress.gov.
Kansas: the one place a law like this was actually tried
Kansas's documentary-proof-of-citizenship law (2013 to 2015) blocked 31,089 would-be voters. In court, the state could identify only about 39 noncitizens among more than 1.7 million voters. A Bush-appointed federal judge, Julie Robinson, called it “no iceberg; only an icicle.” The law was struck down as preempted by the NVRA and a violation of Equal Protection.
Fish v. Kobach, 840 F.3d 710 (10th Cir. 2016); Fish v. Schwab, 957 F.3d 1105 (10th Cir. 2020). ACLU case page.
The president's push, and the executive order the courts struck down
The president refused to sign the bipartisan 21st Century Road to Housing Act until Congress passed the SAVE Act; the housing bill became law without his signature on July 11, 2026. He also devoted a July 16, 2026 prime-time address to pushing the bill.
CBS News and NPR, Housing bill becomes law without Trump’s signature; speech via NPR.
In March 2025 the president signed an executive order (EO 14248) to force a proof-of-citizenship rule onto the federal voter form. A federal court temporarily blocked that provision in April 2025, and in October 2025 permanently enjoined it, finding the president lacks authority to rewrite election procedures that belong to Congress and the states.
EO 14248 (Mar. 25, 2025); League of Women Voters v. Trump, blocked by a federal district court (permanent injunction Oct. 31, 2025). Brennan Center, Status of Trump’s 2025 Anti-Voting Executive Order.
The closing quote
“Voting is a precious right that for two centuries Americans have fought and died to protect.” — President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Voter Participation, October 18, 1986.