The SAVE America Act: 9 Points Highlighted.
Currently, it is against the law to vote if you are not a citizen. There is a punishable penalty (fines or imprisonment) for perjury if someone is caught illegally voting.
The Bipartisan Policy Center analyzed a database of fraud cases compiled by the Heritage Foundation and found “only 77 instances of noncitizen voting between 1999 and 2023.”
The SAVE America Act (formerly the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) is being considered by the Senate right now. It passed the House of Representatives on February 11, 2026.
Below is an abbreviated review of what the Act includes.
VOTING
The Act applies to all elections for federal office.
This law would go into effect for the upcoming 2026 fall mid-term elections. Implementation will drastically increase the workloads of the Boards of Elections as they would need to verify voters while primaries are occurring in some states and they all are months away from the general midterm elections.
Voters must have a valid photo ID to vote. We already do this in NC to vote in person or by absentee ballot. The difference may be the restrictions on what is considered “valid.” By the standards in this bill, only 10 states have the strict photo ID category being proposed. NC is not one of them.
PROVING CITIZENSHIP
3. The SAVE Act would require people to present citizenship documents in person to election officials, even if they are registering by mail. This does not affect all voters, just those registering for the first time or for anyone updating their registration because of moving to a new location or getting married and changing their name.
4. Proving citizenship would mean presenting a U.S. passport or a certified birth certificate along with a driver’s license or other government-issued photo ID that has the voter’s current name on it. Other acceptable forms of ID include a valid military ID, and forms of Tribal identification. Concerns:
The Bipartisan Policy Center revealed in a March 16 post that not all birth certificates include all of the noted criteria.
About 53% of the U.S. Population has a U.S. passport, according to Department of State data. The cost for one is $165.
The typical driver's license or government-issued photo ID cards don't show birthplace or citizenship on them. Only a Real ID does in these five states (Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington).
A birth certificate with the name of the voter, identical to the name on the ID would be required or a naturalization certificate, or adoption decree.
Anyone with a name change would be required to show documents supporting the change. This specifically affects up to 69 million women who have changed their names when they married (or divorced).
Families who have been through a natural disaster (like Helene) may no long have access to their documents.
It will be left up to the states to develop a process for implementing these changes.
According to a 2023 survey by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice and other groups, more than 9% of Americans of voting age, or 21.3 million people, didn’t have easy access to citizenship documents, meaning they wouldn’t be able to “quickly find” such documents if they “had to show it tomorrow.” The percentage was 11% for Americans who did not identify as white.
CONNECTING SYSTEMS
5. The SAVE American Act requires that election officials check the citizenship status of all voters through the SAVE System (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements). This is a nation-wide information system created by the Department of Homeland Security.
6. This step is for the “purposes of identifying individuals who are not citizens of the United States and taking the necessary steps to remove such individuals who are not citizens from the official list. Concerns:
7. This system is not error free. States like Texas have found that citizens were mistakenly flagged. In February, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune wrote that their examination of the SAVE system “reveals that DHS rushed the revamped tool into use while it was still adding data and before it could discern voters’ most up-to-date citizenship information.”
8. The SAVE America Act does not provide information on how these errors can be fixed.
ELECTION STAFF PENALTIES
9. Election officials can risk incarceration and steep fines for a federal crime if they mistakenly register someone whose documentation does not match their current name.
You may quickly reach your senator below to express your opinion on this Act. Do it soon. The vote could happen any day or within the week.
Resources used extensively in the information above are from:
Factcheck.org A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. March, 18, 2026
NC State Board of Elections (NCSBE) Has Been Busy. Could This Be You?
TO REPAIR YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION:
By mail: Complete and sign the form at the bottom of the letter and return it in the enclosed prepaid envelope.
Online: Voters with an N.C. driver’s license or DMV-issued ID may update their registration through the secure NCDMV website at payments.ncdot.gov at no cost.
In person: Visit the county board of elections office to provide the missing information. Registration cannot be updated by phone.
The media release is here.
To check your Voter Registration go to VOTE411.org. anytime, 24/7.
This is part of ongoing efforts by the State Board to maintain accurate and current voter rolls. . . . Importantly, this new effort in no way will affect any voter’s registration status. During elections, affected voters will be asked if they want to update their information at their voting site. They will still vote regular ballots even if they do not update their information, unless there is another reason they must vote a provisional ballot.—From NCSBE media release regarding this effort, February 5, 2026.
Reach out to your local Board of Elections office below for further guidance.
