Sen. Mike Lee will reintroduce the SAVE Act, on noncitizen voting

Utah Sen. Mike Lee said he will reintroduce legislation that would make it more difficult for noncitizens to vote.

“The House is about to pass the SAVE Act again. I am reintroducing it in the Senate in the coming days. Only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections,” he wrote in an X post Tuesday evening.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., are reintroducing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act in the House this week.

Lee explained why he thinks the bill is necessary in another post, writing, “Yes, it’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, but that law has become impossible to enforce due to a combination of court rulings & other developments The SAVE Act would fix that.”

The legislation was initially passed in the House last July, but stalled in the Senate and was then removed from the budget bill after it failed to pass the House, per Democracy Docket. President Joe Biden opposed the SAVE Act, vowing to veto it if it passed in the Senate and the House, according to Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.

What does the SAVE Act do?

According to its proponents, the SAVE Act does two things to ensure only American citizens are eligible to vote:

Requires voting applicants to provide “documentary proof of United States citizenship in person to the office of the appropriate election official.”
Requires states to “remove an individual who is not a citizen of the United States from the official list of eligible voters for elections for Federal office held in the State at any time” when the office receives verified information the person is not a U.S. citizen.

Lee explained the language comes from Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which he referred to as “the Elections Clause.” He explained how this section gives Congress “the power to regulate the ‘Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives.’”

The SAVE Act was initially introduced July 2024 and met opposition

Addressing its initial opposition in Congress, Lee wrote on Tuesday, “Congressional Democrats were wrong to block the SAVE Act based on their argument that ‘noncitizens neither vote nor register to vote.’ We knew they were wrong last year when they were making that argument, and time has proven them wrong—with even more certainty than we had last year.”

In 17 states, including California, New York, Colorado and Washington D.C., various state laws have allowed migrants in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses or driver’s privilege cards, which some argue can work as a path to getting registered to vote.

In July 2024, the Washington, D.C., based think-tank, the Bipartisan Policy Center, voiced concern over the bill placing too much burden on citizens, claiming “there are more effective ways to ensure the voter rolls include only eligible Americans and place the burden of proof on the state and federal government — not their citizens.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center cited Arizona’s “federal-only list” that tracks voters who were unable to provide proof of citizenship and claimed that “noncitizens, college students and individuals experiencing homelessness — both transient populations that are more likely to lack identifying documentation — were disproportionately represented on the federal-only list.”

However, others supporting the bill, including Immigration Accountability Project President Chris Chmielenski, have said it is necessary.

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Chmielenski said, “Federal agencies and state DMVs offer voter registration forms to everyone with whom they come in contact, regardless of their citizenship. That dramatically increases the chances that some of the estimated 30 million noncitizens living in the United States — including illegal aliens — will register to vote and vote in upcoming elections.”

The bill was co-sponsored in the House by Utah Rep. Burgess Owens, who also voiced his support Tuesday on X, writing, “On board and on mission to SAVE American elections.”

President-elect Donald Trump voiced his support of the bill in July on Truth Social, when he wrote, “Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep.”

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