Arizona Republicans in Congress vote for bill that would make it harder to vote

The SAVE Act would require US citizens to show birth certificates or passports when registering to vote, even though tens of millions of Americans lack access to those documents.

All Arizona Republicans in the US House of Representatives voted last week to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE Act, which would implement steep barriers to registering to vote and casting your ballot.

The bill, backed by President Donald Trump as part of his ongoing attacks on election integrity, would require voters to provide proof-of-citizenship, like a passport or birth certificate, when registering to vote, and require them to show photo ID when casting their ballots. 

The legislation also requires voters to submit an acceptable form of ID when requesting and casting an absentee ballot, which could make it harder to vote for the nearly 80% of Arizonans who vote by mail in elections.

Every Arizona Democrat in the House—Reps. Adelita Grijalva, Greg Stanton, and Yassamin Ansari—voted against the bill.

“The names of these bills do not correlate with anything that it actually does. This bill specifically would impose burdensome proof of citizenship requirements that could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters despite no evidence of voter fraud,” Rep. Adelita Grijalva said in a video shared on X. “That’s something we cannot support.”

Only about half of Americans have a passport, which on average costs $130, and millions of Americans don’t have readily available access to proof of citizenship paperwork. That’s why advocacy groups are worried this new legislation risks disenfranchising millions of voters, particularly married women and LGBTQ+ people whose names often do not match their birth certificate, and voters of color, who are more likely to lack access to these documents. 

The legislation could also make it harder for Arizona’s Native Americans communities to cast a ballot. While the legislation allows voters to use tribal IDs, not all Arizona tribes offer tribal IDs. For Native Americans in rural Arizona communities, obtaining a birth certificate in the event the paperwork is lost or stolen can serve as another barrier.

Despite its risks, Republican Reps. Andy Biggs, David Schweikert, Abe Hamadeh, Paul Gosar, Eli Crane, and Juan Ciscomani voted in favor of the legislation. 

“Every American citizen demands the assurance that their vote will not be cancelled out by an unlawfully cast ballot,” Rep. Biggs said in a post on X.

Arizona already requires documentary-proof-of-citizenship (DPOC) in order to vote in state and local elections after Prop. 200 passed in 2004. Arizonans can present a driver’s license issued after October 1, 1996 to satisfy DPOC requirements as the state works with the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) to verify their identification. Without DPOC, Arizona voters can cast a federal ballot only. 

While DPOC advocates argue it safeguards elections, studies show noncitizen voting is extremely rare altogether. States already require voters to swear under penalty of perjury that they are US citizens eligible to vote, and individuals can incur steep fines, criminal penalties, and even deportation if they are dishonest.

The legislation comes after Trump argued in favor of nationalizing elections, overriding state and local processes to allow the federal government to oversee the electoral process, instead. Trump has repeatedly spread doubt on the validity of the 2020 election, stating it was rigged and stolen from him  after his loss to President Joe Biden. In Arizona. Trump lost the state by roughly 10,000 votes, prompting him and other top Republicans to repeatedly echo unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud across the state and country.

On Feb. 13, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem hosted a press conference on behalf of the SAVE Act at a Homeland Security Investigations field office in Scottsdale, stating it would safeguard elections and pointing the blame at Arizona leaders.

“Your state has been an absolute disaster on elections. Your leaders have failed you dramatically by not having systems that work, by disenfranchising Americans who wanted to vote that stood in lines for hours because machines failed or software failed.”

Attorney General Kris Mayes responded to Noem’s comments in a press release.

“Arizona’s elections are safe and secure. The election deniers now staffing the Trump administration have spent the past six years lying to the American people in a deliberate effort to destroy trust in our election system,” Mayes said. “It was nothing more than another baseless attack from a federal government that lies to the American people on a daily basis. If the Trump administration wants to restore trust in our elections, it can start by telling the truth about them.”

The bill now moves to the US Senate, where it will likely face a filibuster.