A Safeguard Against Equality

Spring 2025

Neekou Hashemi-Nejad

Edited By: Katy Fyvie

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) is jeopardizing voting rights in the United States, restricting voting eligibility rather than safeguarding it. The Republican-majority U.S. House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act on April 10, 2025. The SAVE Act emerges amidst President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant political environment and raises questions regarding the extent of legal restrictions placed upon immigrants and U.S. citizens alike. Allegedly, creators of the bill drafted it to eradicate noncitizen voting, despite a statistically negligible number of noncitizens attempting to vote and an even smaller number who were successful. The SAVE Act intensifies requirements for citizenship verification, presenting new voting difficulties for millions. It will require a form of valid identification, such as a passport, original birth certificate, or naturalization certificate, which many Americans do not possess or have readily available. However, there are plenty of forms of identification that the SAVE Act does not view as legitimate for citizenship confirmation purposes, including tribal IDs and any identification form that does not match one’s original birth certificate. This inherently restricts millions of transgender individuals who have changed their name since birth, as well as 69 million women who have elected to adopt their husbands’ surnames [1]. Its restrictions, disguised as protections, will act as barriers to voting justice for groups already marginalized by the government. The SAVE Act surfaced as an amendment to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and context for its passage is found in historical governmental action regarding suffrage, including Shelby County v. Holder (2013). In Shelby County, the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that required states with a history of discriminatory voting practices to pursue federal pre-approval of changes to voting laws, deeming it unconstitutional. This clause granted states the power to continue expanding unequal voting practices, and contributed to fostering a political environment under which lawmakers could pass a potentially discriminatory bill such as the SAVE Act. Now, it has been passed in the House of Representatives.

Not only does the SAVE Act restrict civil liberties, but it also risks disenfranchising millions of eligible voters, disproportionately restricting minority voters in its wake. The SAVE Act is a blatant violation of the principles of equal protection under law and fair suffrage guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and should not be passed by the Senate.

The SAVE Act disregards the legal and governmental foundations that the United States rests upon, including historical precedent, past legal protections against voting inequality, and constitutional amendments. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments are amongst the most fundamental to voting rights and equality in the United States. The Senate passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, in an effort, along with Amendment Fifteen, to fairly and equally integrate formerly enslaved individuals into America’s democratic system. The Fourteenth Amendment is especially pertinent to American legal and constitutional processes due to its wide-reaching applicability to a variety of legal cases and government policies. It defines an individual born or naturalized in the US as a US citizen, ensuring each of these citizens “equal protection under the laws” [2]. This guarantees uniformly just treatment of all citizens by the government, regardless of the citizen’s racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual identity. The SAVE Act and its requirement of documentation that is less accessible for several minority populations in the United States does not allow these minorities to experience equality during the voting process.

Authors and supporters of the SAVE Act claim it solves the problem of noncitizen voting; however, the SAVE Act seems to prevent citizens from voting. Primarily, minority citizens. The restrictions the SAVE Act places on these minorities effectively treat them as quasi-noncitizens—people who cannot actualize their constitutionally-granted rights. It is important to note, however, that condemnation of the SAVE Act does not arise from a desire to enable noncitizen voting, especially as, considering collected data, this is an insignificant issue. Upon Trump’s qualms about noncitizen voting in the 2016 presidential elections, it was estimated that in a selection of 42 jurisdictions—some with the largest noncitizen populations in the U.S.—only 0.0001 percent of votes came from noncitizens [3]. Similarly and more recently, in Georgia, which has a voting population of over 7 million, only 1,634 noncitizens attempted to vote, and all attempts were unsuccessful [4]. Instead, condemnation of the SAVE Act is to ensure equality under the law as the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution pledges. This especially includes those in persecuted demographics that are specifically targeted by the SAVE Act: racial and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and naturalized immigrants. Despite how policies such as the SAVE Act treat them, these populations are legitimate US citizens and the law must treat them as such. If not, then it is the legitimacy of the American government that is at risk.

The SAVE Act also stands in opposition to the Fifteenth Amendment, a crucial amendment that has been violated time and time again by groups seeking division and separation of marginalized groups from civil society. The Fifteenth Amendment ensures the right of suffrage to US citizens, not to be “denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” [5]. Together, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments assert broad, inclusive governmental and legal justice and equality. Discriminatory voting restrictions that are sure to emerge in the wake of the SAVE Act weaken the legitimacy of these assertions.

When discriminatory actions have threatened these amendments, specifically the Fifteenth Amendment, in the past, the US government has taken steps to reaffirm their legitimacy. As the SAVE Act weakens the legitimacy of the Constitution, lawmakers should be exploring constitutionally reaffirming actions now. One such historical document created in the interest of upholding the power of the Fifteenth Amendment is the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which outlines specific protections meant to protect American citizens from unequal treatment during the voting process. The Supreme Court passed the VRA in the heart of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, when a harsh and violent police attack against a group of nonviolent march of voting rights supporters in Alabama spurred outrage and catalyzed support for the creation of such an act [6]. The Act afforded several protections to minority suffrage, asserting that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting…shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color” [7]. Section 2 contributes to the protection of voting rights by allowing lawsuits in response to discriminatory voting practices. This section’s emphasis on ending unjust electoral processes was upheld in Allen v. Milligan (2023), in which the Supreme Court agreed that Alabama’s voting districts were intentionally discriminatory, unlawful, and in violation of Section 2 of the VRA [8]. In a recent development, dissatisfied by the ruling and redistricting that the Supreme Court mandated, Alabama took the case to trial in February 2025. In May, however, a federal court confirmed Alabama’s violation of Section 2 and required greater equality for black voters on the Alabama congressional map [9]. Section 2, together with other provisions in the VRA, continues to uphold and reaffirm the principles of the Fifteenth Amendment, especially with its strengthening in 2023. The United States has a history of discrimination, but also has a deep history in protecting the voices of minorities in America through advocacy and anti-discrimination legislation. Both these aspects of American history must factor into the condemnation of new voting legislation like the SAVE Act, out of precedent to previous protective legislation and more importantly, to prevent the recurrence of historical unjust treatment.

Following precedent in the interest of increasing equality becomes even greater of a challenge when the precedent that is meant to guide the protection and expansion of minority rights is weakened. While Allen v. Milligan may have temporarily protected the validity of Section 2 of the VRA, Shelby County v. Holder (2013) attacked key points of Section 5 and contributed to setting the stage for the introduction of discriminatory initiatives like the SAVE Act. Section 5 of the VRA had established that states and areas with historical connections to discrimination against minorities must seek approval, or “preclearance,” from federal government entities before making any changes in their voting practices—a preventative approach to voting equality, as opposed to Section 2’s more remediative approach [10]. With Shelby, the Supreme Court effectively invalidated Section 5’s preclearance rule, allowing states like Texas and North Carolina to implement voting restrictions such as limiting polling place availability and imposing over-strict polling photo identification requirements [11]. While these restrictions were eventually remedied by lawsuits, this process was lengthy, and many minority votes for the election in question were not cast. Lawsuits for racial discrimination in the voting process, as allowed by Section 2 of the VRA, are not a viable or practical option for resistance to electoral inequality. Many individuals or minority groups do not have the resources for such legal action, and even if they or outside nongovernmental organizations or interest groups do pursue litigation, the process is not timely and does not solve the issue of temporary disenfranchisement with the urgency and timeliness that the issue requires. Limiting the rights of marginalized groups while allowing them the opportunity to advocate for their rights should not be an acceptable course of action for the federal government, which must be constitutionally, legally, and principally dedicated to equality of all citizens and all voters. The Voting Rights Act and its protections are at risk of losing power and legitimacy with the introduction of the SAVE Act, which puts the principles of the US Constitution in jeopardy, threatening American foundations of democracy and equality.

To holistically understand the injustices of the SAVE Act and its violations of fundamental principles and documents of the United States government, one must view it in the context of the current political climate that magnifies discriminatory sentiment and policies. On March 25, 2025, President Trump attempted to bypass the contentious deliberations in the US regarding the passage of the SAVE Act, which had already been passed by the House of Representatives, by signing Executive Order 14019, set to achieve many of the same goals as the SAVE Act [12]. This includes requiring voters who submit ballots through mail to present documents confirming their citizenship, an issue for over 9% of eligible US voters—21.3 million people—for whom accessing documentary proof of citizenship poses a particular and disproportionate challenge, with low-income populations at a particular disadvantage [13]. It also includes the cancellation of the mail-in ballot grace period that 18 states currently allow their voters, counting mail-in votes postmarked before Election Day, but received shortly after Election Day. Minorities, especially Black Americans, utilize mail-in voting systems disproportionately more frequently than white voters [14]. In the 2020 presidential elections, 25% more Black than white voters used mail-in ballots in Georgia—a new trend for nonwhite voters [15]. Since then and to this day, as illustrated by Trump’s controversial March executive order, mail-in votes have been particularly challenged by restrictive legislation. This affects the equality of the election system in a very similar manner to the SAVE Act, and exemplifies the desire of the federal government to restrict minority voting participation. While this March executive order was temporarily halted by a federal court in late April 2025, it exemplifies the commitment the current administration has toward excluding minorities from electoral society. In his first term, Trump restricted minority voting rights as well, including in 2020, when, in his supposed effort to exclude unauthorized immigrants from census data, Trump invalidated the census data of an estimated 20 million US citizens—largely consisting of low-income urban populations or rural farmers [16]. This risked their proper governmental representation due to inaccurate apportionment [17]. Beyond his harsh restrictions on the voting rights of citizens, President Trump’s anti-immigration sentiment is no secret either, with one of his first executive orders of his second term ending birthright citizenship, and his more recent effort to deny 350,000 Venezuelans from crucial humanitarian temporary protected status on May 19 [18]. This can foster a political environment in which the government may entertain discussions about and even pass policies like the SAVE Act.

Blatant and deleterious xenophobia certainly seems to explain much of this administration’s hostility and proclivity for sociopolitical ostracization. Political strategy rooted in this xenophobia is what bridges the gap between nationalist public and political sentiment and proposing and passing legislation like the SAVE Act. Political strategy is another piece of the puzzle, or perhaps, simply the flip side of the same xenophobic coin. Either way, it is clear that the current administration limits the power and rights of minorities, and this is closely tied to voting metrics. Historically, nonwhite voters tend to put their electoral support behind Democratic candidates. Black voters are the most overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning, with exit poll data showing estimates of Democratic voting percentages, which were between 82% and 90% from 1972 to 2020 [19]. Hispanic and Asian populations also tend to vote Democratically, but the figures are less dramatic, with Hispanic Democratic votes ranging from 53–76% from 1972–2020 and Asian votes fluctuating slightly more, starting at 31% and 43% in 1992 and 1996, but increasing to a range of 54–73% between 2000 and 2020 [20]. These nonwhite voting trends held constant in the 2024 elections, where a majority of many minority groups voted for Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. The proportions of these groups that voted Republican rather than Democrat were generally higher than the proportions of the same groups who did so in the 2020 elections. However, in comparisons between these two elections, it would be amiss not to note that a significant difference between the two Democratic candidates was their racial and gender identity. Despite increasing minority votes for Trump, it is unclear whether this is a spike or a one-time phenomenon. Regardless of the slight diversion from precedent, a majority of minority groups still supported Harris in her candidacy. Nonwhite voters can predictably be more beneficial for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates, and this Democratic propensity, as well as their vulnerability—disadvantages in equal representation in government, lower income, other racial, ethnic, or gender or sexual identity-related discrimination in various private and public forums—makes them prime targets for Republican politicians to restrict the voting rights of with actions like the SAVE Act. Fittingly, there is a strong correlation between voting legislation that discriminates against certain populations and a decline in electoral participation of the same populations discriminated against [21]. The more minorities who are unable to produce documentation that satisfies the requirements of the SAVE Act, the fewer minority voters will be able to submit votes for Democratic candidates.

In contrast with the current administration’s affinity for restricting voting rights and democratic processes for minorities, there has been productive action taken to expand these rights. The redistricting success of Allen v. Milligan allowed for two majority-Black Alabama districts—a historic first—and increased the Black voter turnout by 6% in majority-Black districts in Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana [22]. Initiatives such as the Legal Defense Fund’s Black Voters of the Rise organization have played important roles in strengthening and advocating for minority populations in the effort to increase voting participation and equality [23]. Then why, now, are we as a democratic state reverting to discriminatory practices and resorting to dividing society rather than uniting it? Why are we returning to the archaic practices of Reconstruction-era marginalization? What can we, as citizens and the government, do to improve the inequality in voting rights? The answer—more a mitigation of the discriminatory problems society faces now rather than a comprehensive solution to the ancient issue of sociopolitical inequality—requires a complex, multi-faceted approach. The dissolution of the SAVE Act is an obvious start. Formal and informal political action—advocacy from government officials, senators, interest and advocacy groups, and even ordinary citizens against the SAVE Act—is crucial in stopping the bill before it gets through the Senate.

While the Senate considers the SAVE Act, both public and private actors must inform the public about the SAVE Act, whether or not it passes. If it does not pass, then citizens will be more aware of the danger to electoral rights that themselves or their fellow citizens and neighbors face, and hopefully grow more resistant to current and future political efforts to restrict voting rights. If the SAVE Act does pass, it is even more imperative that the public is aware, to advocate against its removal and to support initiatives to remedy voting inequality. Additionally, awareness will help individuals and populations with minimal access to identification and citizenship-confirming documents to seek resources to obtain proper documentation well before elections, hopefully minimizing the harmful and exclusionary effects of the SAVE Act. Awareness efforts should be widespread and disseminated through schools, community centers, reputable news forums, and even social media. Advocacy groups target efforts for raising awareness toward the very communities that are most affected by the SAVE Act’s restrictive policies, such as speaking to indigenous tribal communities about the SAVE Act’s delegitimization of tribal IDs, or traveling to rural farming communities to inform them of resources to procure valid identifying documentation. Similarly, repealing other harmful legislation, including Shelby County v. Holder, is imperative. Implementing and enforcing a measure the House of Representatives has introduced—The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act—can override some of Shelby County’s discriminatory effects, along with other measures that weaken the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Specifically, the John Lewis Act would reinstate the preclearance clause struck down in Shelby County and strengthen the litigation allowed in Section 2 of the VRA [24].

Strengthening minority communities will also make them more resilient to restrictive legislation throughout this administration and beyond. Efforts to decrease gerrymandering and increase accurate, equitable redistricting of congressional districts will allow minorities who do have access to documentation that is deemed valid by the SAVE Act to experience greater political power and representation. A heightened effort to improve voter turnout in various minority communities will achieve a similar effect. Finally, expanding access to quality education in minority communities and decreasing censorship in all communities will allow for a new generation of well-informed citizens to advocate for their rights and the rights of their peers.

The SAVE Act masquerades as an improvement to voting processes, but instead threatens the democratic legitimacy of American society; the proposed legislation is a pointed and dangerous insult to founding principles of US governance. The basis of its creation is baseless, adding “protections” against non-citizen voting when statistics of such are exiguous—an indicator of the emergence of such an act in a political environment rampant with xenophobic political thought. The SAVE Act’s constitutional violations, presented as protections, disenfranchise eligible voters—disproportionately, marginalized groups—which opposes the US government’s dedication to equality under the law and in voting practices in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution.

Democratic Congresspeople are working tirelessly to ensure that the bill does not reach approval in the Senate, including filibustering. Strengthening minority communities and passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would be a crucial step in protecting the rights of US citizens to vote unrestrictedly, and in a manner that is equal to each of their fellow citizens, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. The passage of the SAVE Act will indicate the trajectory of American governance, during the remainder of the current administration and beyond. Will a Republican-majority Congress restrict the voting rights of millions? The implications on future elections would be severe, especially if masses of minority voters are unable to vote, and the legitimacy of the Constitution itself may be called into question. In a time of such progress, it is time for the United States to grow and evolve, expanding equality instead of restricting it. It is crucial that the United States does not repeat the atrocities of the past and instead creates a legacy of justice that applies to all citizens, no matter their identity.

References 

[1] Barbara Rodriguez, “House passes bill that could make it harder for married women to vote,” The 19th News, April 10, 2025, https://19thnews.org/2025/04/save-act-house-voting/ 

[2] “Landmark Legislation: The Fourteenth Amendment,” United States Senate, https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/14th-amendment.htm 

[3] Douglas Keith, Myrna Pérez, Christopher Famighetti, “Noncitizen Voting: The Missing Millions,” Brennan Center for Justice, May 5, 2017, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/noncitizen-voting-missing-millions 

[4] “Secretary Raffensperger Refers 1,600 Noncitizen Registrants to Local DAs, GBI, State Election Board,” Georgia Secretary of State, April 11, 2022; “Georgia Active Voters Report,” Georgia Secretary of State, December 2021, https://sos.ga.gov/georgia-active-voters-report 

[5] 15th Amendment, Cornell Law School (1870), https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxv 

[6] Jo Deutsch, “Why America Needs the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” Campaign Legal Center, March 5, 2025, https://campaignlegal.org/update/why-america-needs-john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act 

[7] Voting Rights Act, National Archives (1965), https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act 

[8] Allen v. Milligan, American Civil Liberties Union (2025), https://www.aclu.org/cases/thomas-v-allen-and-milligan-v-merrill 

[9] Allen v. Milligan

[10] Kareem Crayton, “The Voting Rights Act Explained,” Brennan Center for Justice, July 17, 2023, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-rights-act-explained 

[11] Kristen Clarke, “Reflecting On the 10th Anniversary of Shelby County v. Holder,” US Department of Justice Archives, June 23, 2023, https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/reflecting-10th-anniversary-shelby-county-v-holder 

[12] Travis Morin, “The Future of the SAVE Act,” NonprofitVOTE, April 17, 2025, https://www.nonprofitvote.org/future-of-save-act/ 

[13] Jude Joffe-Block, “Judge pauses parts of Trump’s sweeping executive order on voting,” National Public Radio, April 24, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/04/24/nx-s1-5372526/trump-voting-executive-order-pause; Barbara Rodriguez, “House passes bill that could make it harder for married women to vote.”

[14] “Trump Executive Order Would Disenfranchise Millions of Black Voters,” Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, March 27, 2025, https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/trump-executive-order-would-disenfranchise-millions-of-black-voters/ 

[15] Wendy Weiser, Madiba Dennie, “Voting Rights: A Critical Two Years,” Brennan Center for Justice, June 14, 2022, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/voting-rights-critical-two-years 

[16] Randy Capps, Jennifer Van Hook, and Julia Gelatt, “Millions of U.S. Citizens Could Be Excluded under Trump Plan to Remove Unauthorized Immigrants from Census Data,” Migration Policy Institute, July 2020, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/millions-us-citizens-could-be-excluded-under-plan-remove-unauthorized-immigrants-census 

[17] Randy Capps, Jennifer Van Hook, and Julia Gelatt, “Millions of U.S. Citizens Could Be Excluded under Trump Plan to Remove Unauthorized Immigrants from Census Data.”

[18] “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” The White House, January 20, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/; Andrew Chung, “US Supreme Court lets Trump end deportation protection for Venezuelans,” Reuters, May 19, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-lets-trump-end-deportation-protection-venezuelans-2025-05-19/ 

[19] Karlyn Bowman, “The Exit Polls: A History and Trends over Time, 1972-2020,” American Enterprise Institute, January 11, 2022, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-exit-polls-a-history-and-trends-over-time-1972-2020/ 

[20] Bowman, “The Exit Polls: A History and Trends over Time, 1972-2020.”

[21] Weiser, Dennie, “Voting Rights: A Critical Two Years.”

[22] Peter Miller, Arlyss Herzig, “Voting Rights Act Enforcement Increases Turnout,” Brennan Center for Justice, April 29, 2025, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-rights-act-enforcement-increases-turnout 

[23] Amir Badat, “Black Voters on the Rise,” Legal Defense Fund, August 9, 2024, https://www.naacpldf.org/black-voters-on-the-rise-building-black-political-power/ 

[24] Deutsch, “Why America Needs the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”