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voting rights
'So Be It,' Says Schumer After Trump Issues Unhinged Threat Against 2026 Voting Rights
"Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances," vowed the Senate Minority Leader.
Mar 08, 2026
The extremes to which the Republican Party will go to sway the 2026 elections in their favor was highlighted again on Sunday after US President Donald Trump said he will sign no other legislation into law this year until the SAVE Act—a bill that would deeply erode voting rights and threatens ballot access for tens of millions of Americans—is passed by Congress.
"It must be done immediately," Trump declared in a characteristically unhinged social media post on Sunday, referring to the SAVE Act, versions of which have passed the Republican-controlled House but so far stalled in the Senate.
"It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE," Trump continued in an all-caps tantrum. "I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION - GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY - ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!"
Voting rights experts and Democratic lawmakers have denounced the SAVE Act as a dangerous threat to millions of eligible voters, calling it a clear effort by the GOP to tip the scales in their favor by depressing voter turnout in 2026 and beyond.
"In every form, the SAVE Act would require American citizens to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Our research shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents," warned Eliza Sweren-Becker and Owen Bacskai of the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for robust voting rights, in a blog post last week.
"Roughly half of Americans don’t even have a passport," Sweren-Becker and Bacskai continued. "Millions lack access to a paper copy of their birth certificate. The SAVE Act would disenfranchise Americans of all ages and races, but younger voters and voters of color would suffer disproportionately. Likewise, millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports would face extra steps just to make their voices heard."
In response to Trump's threat on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) characterized the SAVE Act as "Jim Crow 2.0" as he condemned the president and his GOP allies.
"If Trump is saying he won’t sign any bills until the SAVE Act is passed, then so be it: there will be total gridlock in the Senate," said Schumer. "Senate Democrats will not help pass the SAVE Act under any circumstances."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, said Sunday that the SAVE Act—which Trump said last week must be passed "at the expense of everything else"—is not a voter ID bill, but rather "voter suppression" legislation bill masquerading as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
"If it was a voter ID bill, it would provide people with the proper IDs to vote, with no barriers — but it doesn’t," noted D'Arrigo. "The voter fraud rate is .0001%, and this bill would potentially prevent up to 69 million women, 40 million who don’t have access to their birth certificate, and 140 million without a passport, from voting."
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Trump Calls for GOP to Pass Major Attack on US Voting Rights 'At the Expense of Everything Else'
The SAVE America Act and related bills "aren't about keeping our elections free and fair," warned the ACLU. "They're about politicians setting the stage to interfere with election results they don't like."
Mar 05, 2026
In a pair of Truth Social posts on Thursday, President Donald Trump urged congressional Republicans to pass the voter suppression bill that is stalled in the US Senate after being advanced by the House of Representatives last month.
"The Republicans MUST DO, with PASSION, and at the expense of everything else, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT—And not the watered down version. This is a Country Defining fight for the Soul of our Nation!" Trump wrote Thursday morning.
In a separate post about an hour later, the president added:
THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!
1. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. (IDENTIFICATION!).
2. ALL VOTERS MUST SHOW PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP IN ORDER TO VOTE.
3. NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS (EXCEPT FOR ILLNESS, DISABILITY, MILITARY, OR TRAVEL!).
4. NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.
5. NO TRANSGENDER MUTILATION SURGERY FOR CHILDREN, WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN APPROVAL OF THE PARENTS
The posts came just eight months ahead of the midterms that will determine which party controls each chamber of Congress for the rest of the president's second term—which is also supposed to be his final, under the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, but the 79-year-old with a history of lying about election results and voter fraud has repeatedly teased trying to stay in power.
Trump and other advocates of the SAVE America Act—and its state-level copycats—have claimed that the bill is necessary to prevent immigrants from participating in elections, even though noncitizen voting is already illegal and research has made clear that voter fraud is incredibly rare in the United States.
The House-approved version of the bill, led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), would require states to regularly submit voter rolls to the US Department of Homeland Security, and to obtain proof of citizenship, in person, when registering someone to vote. It would also force voters to present eligible photo identification at the polls.
Critics of the bill have argued that rather than tackling the nonexistent issue of noncitizen voting, the SAVE America Act would disenfranchise eligible voters who don't have access to proof of citizenship documents—such as people who have lost paperwork, can't afford replacements, or have changed their names.
The ACLU has a tool to help Americans contact their senator to oppose the SAVE Act, SAVE America Act, and Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act. The automatic message says in part that "these bills aren't about keeping our elections free and fair. They're about politicians setting the stage to interfere with election results they don't like. Please reject these dangerous, anti-voter bills."
The SAVE Act and its more extreme version, the SAVE America Act, could shut millions of eligible citizens out of our democracy.Tell Congress to reject these attacks on our freedom to vote at aclu.org/stop_anti_voter_
[image or embed]
— ACLU (@aclu.org) March 3, 2026 at 1:29 PM
While House Republicans were able to approve the legislation mostly along party lines—the only Democrat who supported it was Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who notably received a pardon from the president recently—the Senate GOP's majority is too slim to get most bills past the 60-vote filibuster without some Democratic support.
Trump also renewed his call for passing the legislation in his State of the Union address last month, specifically calling out Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD). The following day, the Associated Press reported that Thune backs the bill, and Republicans were discussing how to send it to the president's desk.
According to the AP:
Senate Republicans "aren't unified on an approach," Thune said on Wednesday after Trump's speech.
In an effort to get around Democratic opposition, Trump and others have pushed a so-called "talking filibuster," which would bring the Senate back to the days of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when senators talked indefinitely to block legislation. Today, the Senate mostly skips the speeches and votes to end debate, which takes 60 votes in the Senate where Republicans have a 53-47 majority.
Republicans wouldn't have to change the rules to force a talkathon. They could simply keep the Senate open and make Democrats deliver speeches for days or weeks to delay taking up the legislation. But Thune would still need enough support from his caucus to move forward with that approach, and he said this week that "we aren't there yet."
Absent progress in the Senate, several state legislatures are considering similar bills. Citing the Voting Rights Lab tracker, Talking Points Memo reported Tuesday that 15 states have 26 active election bills with proof of citizenship requirements.
"I think what we're often seeing in these states is that there's an effort to send political messages that don't necessarily comport with the reality of election integrity or the needs of election officials," David Becker, a former US Department of Justice lawyer and executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told TPM.
"Like the SAVE Act, this would require citizens to regularly work to make up for government deficiencies, digging out and showing their citizenship papers over and over and over again when they've already shown them," Becker said of state-level proposals. "Why are we insisting that citizens have to work for government, rather than government working for us?"
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Florida Republicans Ripped for Advancing Show-Me-Your-Papers Voter ID Bill
"This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy," said the ACLU of Florida's executive director.
Feb 25, 2026
With 251 days until the US general election, Florida Republicans on Wednesday passed a show-me-your-papers bill that opponents warn could prevent thousands of eligible state voters from registering if they don't have a valid birth certificate or passport, or their documents don't reflect a name change.
"Midterm elections are coming later this year—and they're a crucial test of our democracy," ACLU of Florida executive director Bacardi Jackson said in a Wednesday statement. "Moments like this bring new voters into the process and give communities the power to hold leaders accountable—exactly what a healthy democracy demands. But right now, some lawmakers are pushing an anti-voter bill that could shut thousands of eligible people out of our elections and discourage the enrollment of new eligible voters."
The Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 83-31 on HB 991, sponsored by Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R-78).
"The Florida House version of the bill would only go into effect in January 2027. But under a similar bill set for consideration in the Florida Senate, the new rules would take effect this July, before the November midterm elections," Democracy Docket detailed. "A House committee already gave preliminary approval to the bill earlier this month."
Jackson highlighted that "many eligible voters don't have ready access to an unexpired passport or an original or certified copy of their birth certificate because of logistical and financial barriers. More than 8 million Floridians do not have a valid passport, and because many women legally change their name upon marriage, more than 4.7 million women in Florida do not have a birth certificate reflecting their current legal name—documents this bill would require."
"At the same time, this proposal would eliminate current, valid forms of ID proving eligibility at the polls, including student IDs, retirement center IDs, and public assistance IDs," she warned. "Taken together, these changes are not neutral or harmless—they would fall hardest on low-income voters, students, seniors, women, and Black and brown Floridians."
The ACLU leader also argued that "context matters. This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy." She specifically pointed to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act that the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives passed earlier this month.
"We're seeing parallel efforts nationally to make it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots—including the SAVE Act being debated in Congress right now—and Florida is leading the way down this authoritarian path," she said. The federal bill is less likely to get through the US Senate, whose filibuster rule requires the GOP to get some Democratic support to advance most legislation.
"What makes this even more galling is that lawmakers don't have to do any of this at all—they are choosing to," said Jackson. "They could enact reforms making it easier for eligible Floridians to vote and have their voices be heard, like the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Florida Voting Rights Act, HB 1419/SB 1598. Instead, they are fast-tracking legislation that would make voting harder for eligible Floridians and silence communities that deserve to be heard."
"We will not stand by while politicians in power seek to entrench their power at the expense of the people's rights," she vowed. "We will keep organizing and fighting to reclaim and defend our democracy—because every eligible Floridian deserves to vote."
Meanwhile, at the federal level, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to hold a vote on the SAVE America Act this week. President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to increase pressure on Congress to send the bill to his desk.
"I'm asking you to approve the SAVE America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections—that cheating is rampant in our elections," Trump said. "It's very simple: All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None."
Experts have long countered such GOP claims by emphasizing that, as the Brennan Center for Justice put it in a pair of blog posts, "noncitizen voting is already illegal" and "extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare."
Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel for the national voting rights group Fair Elections Center, told Democracy Docket on Wednesday that Florida's voter suppression bill "would do a lot of the same things," as the SAVE America Act, "in terms of preventing American citizens from voting who don't have access to documentary proof of citizenship documents."
"The last thing someone who is on a path to citizenship would want to do is to jeopardize their naturalization by voting illegally," Kanter Cohen said. "And so people don't do that. That's not something that's happening because it has such dire consequences."
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