The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act is a bill currently under consideration in the US Senate. It has already passed the House of Representatives. Representative Morgan McGarvey (KY-3) was the only Kentucky representative who voted against it. The bill would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport, REAL ID-compliant document, or certain government IDs, before registering to vote in federal elections. The bill also directs states to verify citizenship and remove non-citizens from voter rolls; a move proponents say will tighten election security.
While the stated goal is to tighten election security, this law will disproportionately affect minorities, low-income citizens, rural residents, and women who have changed their names through marriage, many of whom may lack the required documentation. It could also create administrative hurdles for states, slow voter registration, and risk mistakenly disenfranchising eligible voters, ultimately making it harder for some Americans to participate in elections. These side effects aren’t accidental. The bill is a calculated measure to disenfranchise American voters.
Here’s the breakdown:
First, federal law is already clear: only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote in federal and state elections. All states require new voters to attest to their U.S. citizenship when they register, and all states conduct voter list maintenance to identify potentially ineligible voters on the rolls.
Also, the SAVE Act does not authorize federal funding for the new responsibilities the states will bear. That means Kentucky taxpayers will foot the bill.
Second, it would legislate a fake problem, not a real one. In Kentucky, there are no documented or verified cases of noncitizens casting votes in federal or state elections in recent decades. It’s effectively nonexistent. Nationally, studies examining elections in multiple states, including swing states, show rates of noncitizen voting well under 0.002% of total votes cast, which is statistically negligible.
Third, and the crux of it all, adding ID requirements ignores the fact that tens of millions of Americans lack these documents, and doing so without remedies or support disproportionately suppresses those who are already marginalized. And, since voter fraud is so rare, these laws mostly serve to shrink the electorate rather than protect it.
According to national studies, about 11% of U.S. citizens (roughly 21 million people) don’t have a current, government-issued photo ID. The people least likely to have IDs are low-income individuals, seniors, students, people with disabilities, and racial/ethnic minorities.
So, while the majority of adults have some form of ID (driver’s license, passport, etc.), there’s a significant portion of eligible voters who do not.
Why Some People Don’t Have ID
- Cost barriers: Even “free” state IDs often require supporting documents like a birth certificate or passport, which cost money to obtain. A birth certificate can run $15–30, and a passport costs over $100. For low-income families, those costs matter.
- Access barriers: Not everyone lives near a clerk’s office where people obtain identification. Rural counties may only have one office with limited hours. Public transportation may be nonexistent. Missing work to stand in line can mean lost wages.
- Documentation issues: People born at home, older African Americans born in the segregated South, and Indigenous Americans born on reservations sometimes lack official birth records. Fixing those gaps can be a bureaucratic nightmare.
How ID Laws Disproportionately Impact Minorities & Low-Income Voters
- Historic inequities: Black and Latino voters are statistically less likely to have a government ID than white voters, often due to the barriers above.
- Unequal burden: What seems like a small hoop to jump through for middle-class folks (grab your driver’s license) becomes a high hurdle for people living paycheck to paycheck, juggling multiple jobs, or without reliable transportation.
- Student voters: Many voter ID laws don’t accept student IDs, even from state universities, which disproportionately affects younger (and more racially diverse) voters.
- Indigenous American voters: Some laws require street addresses on IDs. Many Indigenous Americans live on reservations without street addresses—just P.O. boxes—making their tribal IDs “invalid” under some laws.
This is not about election security. This is about silencing eligible voters. Voting is a right, not a privilege. If a law disproportionately prevents certain groups from exercising that right, even unintentionally, it’s discriminatory. We don’t need a legislative cure for a fake disease.