How the SAVE America Act would impact voting | The Excerpt

On the Monday, March 16, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: President Donald Trump says the SAVE America Act would “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans. USA TODAY Congressional Reporter Zach Schermele breaks down what’s in the bill and what its chances of passing are.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Dana Taylor:

The SAVE America Act, if passed, would be one of the biggest revisions of voter rights since the Voting Rights Act, potentially disenfranchising tens of millions of voters. The bill which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and tighten identification rules at the polls passed the House earlier this year. But President Donald Trump is pushing for an even tougher version in the Senate and warning Republicans not to accept what he calls a watered down bill. He's also raised the ante politically, essentially staking the GOP's control of Congress, at risk in the midterms, on its passage.

President Trump:

It'll guarantee the midterms. It'll guarantee the midterms. If you don't get it, big trouble.

Dana Taylor:

Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, March 16th, 2026. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he plans to bring the SAVE America Act up for a vote this week. So what exactly would the bill do and does it have any real chance of becoming law? Joining me now to break it down is USA TODAY Congressional Reporter Zach Schermele. Zach, it's so good to have you back.

Zach Schermele:

Thanks for having me.

Dana Taylor:

Zach, first tell me what's in the version of the SAVE America Act that the Senate might vote on this week.

Zach Schermele:

So this is a tough question to answer, I think, given the political context, because there have been several versions of this legislation that have been proposed and the president himself has given some mixed messages about what specifically he wants to be in this bill. The bill that's going to go before the Senate this week requires proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. That's probably the most important piece of the legislation because currently the federal government requires that only US citizens can vote in state and federal elections, but it really leaves it up to states to enforce that process. Secretaries of state at the federal level, of course, are the folks who are in charge of foreign policies, but at the state level, it's folks who are in charge of administering elections and ensuring that they are free from fraud and those types of things.

The SAVE America Act would also require photo ID to vote. Republicans and Democrats very broadly are pretty much in agreement about photo identification requirements being a relatively good thing. And then it would require states to search for non-citizen voters. These are pretty significant requirements and voting rights advocates argue that although these new requirements would on their face be good in terms of helping to shore up the security of elections, they would create really significant hurdles for millions of Americans potentially.

Dana Taylor:

Practically speaking, what kinds of documents would qualify to prove citizenship and what obstacles might this pose for voters?

Zach Schermele:

So there are a number of different types of documents that could potentially be eligible for demonstrating a proof of citizenship, birth certificates, passports, all those types of things would help folks. But it's important to acknowledge that there are lots of citizens that don't necessarily have these types of documents readily available. The Center for American Progress, which is a progressive think tank, has shown that 146 million American citizens do not have a valid passport. They also note that 69 million women who have married do not have a birth certificate that matches their legal name and thus would face potentially additional hurdles to voting. Now, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has cast cold water on that argument that married women in particular would face additional hurdles to voting if the SAVE America Act passed. She says that married women are smart and we shouldn't discount the fact that they would figure out how to get around those requirements when registering to vote. But it's really important to consider in the context of voting in the United States that any single hurdle could be the difference between someone casting their ballot and not.

Dana Taylor:

Voter ID is very popular among Americans with more than 58% backing it. That's according to the latest Pew research. How is this bill different from other voter ID bills of the past?

Zach Schermele:

There are a number of differences, but primarily it is this requirement for states to turn over voter rolls to the federal government and make it such that the federal government can look through to ensure that those voter roles don't include a significant number of non-citizens. Also, I think just the political context that this legislation is coming to the forefront in is very different. It's happening in the context of the midterm elections approaching. We know given historical trends that Republicans are probably going to lose the House of Representatives. That's not certain. And there are some questions about the feasibility of holding the Republican majority in the Senate as well. And President Donald Trump has repeatedly said when he's lost elections and when other Republicans have lost elections in the past, that voter fraud has been part of that even when there hasn't been evidence of widespread voter fraud in those instances. And so I think it's important to acknowledge that this is happening in the context of a president really wanting the rest of his term not to be thrown off track as a result of Republicans losing the majorities in Congress.

Dana Taylor:

As you said, supporters say the bill is meant to prevent non-citizens from voting, but is voting by non-citizens really an issue? What do the experts say here?

Zach Schermele:

Something that is crucial to consider here is that it is already a crime for non-citizens to vote in elections. And you just have to think about it. In order to sign your name on a ballot, you are, as a non-citizen, you are attesting that you are in fact a citizen and you are committing a felony crime by casting a single ballot in elections where millions of other people are voting and your single vote might not make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. But to you personally, it could render you deportable if you're a non-citizen. So it is not a widespread problem in the United States, all available evidence shows. I think the President is trying to institute this law to look for evidence that it's more widespread than it actually is, but experts disagree with a lot of those assertions from the President recently. And there are a lot of personal consequences to individual people if they vote as non-citizens that would make it not in their best interest to actually cast a ballot.

Dana Taylor:

Let's turn now to mail-in voting. How might it be impacted if the SAVE Act is passed?

Zach Schermele:

So mail-in voting, something that primarily benefits Democrats, largely Republicans typically do more in person same day voting. But in more rural states where it's not as easy to get to the ballot box. Places like Montana, where I'm from, a very big Republican state with reliable Republican majorities, there are a lot of folks there that rely on mail-in voting, and the SAVE America Act would require that photo ID be a part of the mail-in voting process as well, submitting a photocopy of your identification along with your ballot in the mail. The president has pushed for a near total ban on mail-in voting, but that is not a provision that is actually included in the legislation in its current form and that the Senate will be voting on this week. And there's really not support in Congress for that kind of a ban either.

Dana Taylor:

There's also a constitutional question here. Elections are by law administered by the states. Can Congress legally impose federal authority over voting?

Zach Schermele:

There are interesting constitutional questions that I think that this imposes, but if the act were to be enacted and signed by the president, it would be the law of the land. There are separations of powers, questions that I think scholars would have to debate after it's enacted. And certainly there could be some lawsuits that are brought by Democratic Attorneys General in various states, as we've seen with a lot of Trump administration policies.

Dana Taylor:

Trump has been pushing hard for this legislation, even saying he wouldn't sign other bills, save a DHS funding bill until it passes. How much of this debate is about election security policy and how much of it is about political strategy ahead of the midterms?

Zach Schermele:

The President has tried a number of ways, and the White House more broadly, has tried a number of ways to stave off what could be really a bloodbath in the midterm elections in November if Republicans lose the House and could derail the rest of the presidency. First, he tried redistricting, and that has not really gone the way that the White House and Republicans more broadly across the country had hoped. They haven't netted the seats that they wanted. I should say even before redistricting, there was the One Big Beautiful bill and Republicans have hoped that selling those wins from the reconciliation package could stave off those losses. And so I think that this is the next turn of the screw in terms of the White House's strategy to try and ensure that Republicans don't lose big in the midterms. And that was part of the threat that the president was making.

It's important to note though that bills can still become law after 10 days, as long as Congress is in session, even if the President doesn't sign them, if he doesn't veto them. So I think talking to Republicans and Congress over the last week, that there are many of them that didn't necessarily take that threat super seriously. And the legislative affairs folks in the White House are still putting out what are called statements of administration policy about particular pieces of legislation, like a big housing reform bill that passed the Senate last week, signaling what it is that the White House is actually logistically ready to support and allow to become law, even if the president doesn't sign it.

Dana Taylor:

If this act passes, could it even go into effect in time for the midterm elections?

Zach Schermele:

So it depends on how long this takes. Something that we haven't discussed much in the context of this actually happening, there are House Republicans who are hoping, and in fact, some Senate Republicans that have pushed for something called a talking filibuster in order to get the SAVE America Act to pass. It's really the only way that this legislation would actually end up becoming law because there's a 60 vote threshold in the Senate. In order to pass pieces of legislation like this, Republicans have a 53 seat majority and Democrats are not at all on board about the SAVE America Act. So there would not be a path for it to become law. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that it's just cold, hard math here. It's not going to become law under the normal rules of the Senate. If they introduce a talking filibuster, however, debate could go on really endlessly.

It could jam up the Senate for quite a long time. Virtually endless amendments could be offered that only require a simple majority, and that could be really tough for Republicans to face. If that happens, and that's a really big if, as long as it wraps up before the midterms, then yes, the bill would go into effect immediately after the president signs it, but there are a lot of steps in that path before any of that could potentially happen.

Dana Taylor:

If the SAVE Act doesn't pass, does Trump have other options here?

Zach Schermele:

There's been reporting about the President potentially signing an executive order declaring a national emergency with respect to the midterm elections, but he told reporters recently that he actually was not considering that. With Donald Trump, it's very difficult to know day in and day out what it is that he is expecting and what he's planning for, what types of executive orders he could sign. He has long been, even before running for the presidency in 2016 and when losing the presidency in 2020 and in the lead up to his victory in 2024, someone who talks frequently and openly about voter fraud, even when the evidence shows that it doesn't exist. And he's going to be unhappy if Republicans don't win the majority in the House or keep the majority in the House in November. And all indications are that that is what is going to happen. So it's really anyone's guess how he's going to handle that.

I think the big question right now is not necessarily what the White House has planned, but what people like Senate Majority Leader John Thune and like House Speaker Mike Johnson are willing to allow the president to do in the lead up to the midterm elections and how they respond, should they lose their majorities and whether they accept the results of those elections. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said last week talking to reporters about the filibuster and the SAVE America Act, sometimes you have to make adult decisions and acknowledge the political realities. This is something I've heard from a number of Senate Republicans and Congress really is the place where that buck stops.

Dana Taylor:

Zach Schermele is a USA TODAY congressional reporter. Zach, it's always good to have you on The Excerpt.

Zach Schermele:

Thanks so much, Dana.

Dana Taylor:

Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.