Do you have immediate access to a document that proves your citizenship, like a passport? Do you even have one? If not, then you may not be able to vote – even if you’re a fully legal U.S. citizen.
On March 25, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for proof of citizenship to be required on voter registration forms, aiming to protect the “integrity of the election process” from illegal voting and fraud.
The House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, also known as the SAVE Act, on April 10, which echoes the same ideas from the order. Both specify that only a passport, photo ID or military ID that “indicates the applicant is a citizen” will be accepted, and the order threatens federal funding cuts for states that don’t comply.
“It comes down to common sense,” said Larry Smith, LaSalle County Republican Central Committee chairman and member of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee. “You wouldn’t take a check from somebody you couldn’t identify, so why would you take a ballot?”
Smith said America’s “flawed” registration process and “open door” to immigrants has jeopardized the government’s ability to conduct “legal, legitimate elections.”
Others disagree.
A study from the Brennan Center for Justice found that noncitizen voting in the 2016 election was “exceedingly rare.”
Trump’s and the House’s effort to enact stricter voter ID laws could prevent millions of “eligible citizens from casting a ballot,” said Michael Hamner, who coauthored a study about voter ID access from the University of Maryland’s Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.
The study found that over 9% of adult citizens, or 21.3 million potential voters, reported they “do not have” or “could not easily access” documents proving their citizenship, with minority voters being disproportionately affected.
“If we don’t fight, in this country and around the world, for the most marginalized, the most disenfranchised, that’s eventually going to affect all of us,” Daniel Regueira, an activist with Socialist Alternative, said. Regueira attended the Chicago “Hands Off” protest on April 5 to oppose various Trump administration policies.
The order and act also could be particularly “burdensome” for students, according to Christina Rivers, an associate professor of political science at DePaul.
“There is a history of voter ID laws tending to have a disproportionate impact on college students — in part because they’re younger, in part because they’re transient, ” Rivers said. “So if you’re here but you’re from California and your mom has your (passport) and you need that to register to vote, then that’s problematic.”
According to DePaul’s 2022 Freshman Admission Summary, 37% of enrolled freshmen were from out of state. While out-of-state students commonly leave documents like passports with their parents, Rivers said that not “every student is going to have a state ID or a driver’s license” either.
The University of Maryland study found that 41% of 18-24-year-olds lacked a current driver’s license. And not all standard photo IDs provide proof of citizenship, according to Most Policy Initiative.
Rivers said she doubts that the order and act’s potential ability to prevent young people from voting is “by accident,” as “most students tend to vote more liberal.”
Illinois is one of 19 states fighting Trump’s efforts. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general, including Illinois’ Kwame Raoul, filed a lawsuit against the order, calling it “unconstitutional,” as only states and Congress possess the power to regulate elections.
Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy at the ACLU of Illinois, said the lawsuit argues that the order’s attempt to change election law has not “undergone the rigor of an actual legislative process” and would inhibit states’ “ability to operate elections effectively.”
“This is not a law,” Yohnka said. “This is an executive order … laws are not dictated by somebody signing a document with a Sharpie and then showing it off like their kindergarten project.”
The lawsuit “calls on a federal district court in Massachusetts to block several provisions of the executive order,” according to NPR.
But Smith, the LaSalle County Republican, feels that, while the court system may have the power to challenge the order, doing so is an example of the legal system “running amok.”
“You’ve got federal district court judges … who are actually countermanding the entire executive branch of our federal government,” Smith said.
Matt Dietrich, a public information officer at the Illinois State Board of Elections, also defied Trump’s order by sending an email informing voters that, under the National Voter Registration Act and Illinois law, they would not be required to show proof of citizenship or photo ID at the Illinois consolidated elections on April 1, Capitol News Illinois reported.
While the lawsuit and state law could act as barriers to the order, the SAVE Act could be harder to oppose. Rivers said that voting access groups will challenge it, but questioned whether it will be successfully overturned if brought to the Supreme Court.
“Voter integrity does not have to come at the expense of voter access,” Rivers said, noting that laws like the National Voter Registration Act already achieve both.
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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect River’s correct title, and to make the final paragraphs more clear about the aim of the SAVE Act.