Opportunities for your input. Election changes are being planned. Now seeking public comments. Add yours.
This page offers a list of what they are and the comment period during which you may add your opinion. It can be a short comment. Go ahead, just say it!
(See NC Board of Elections items at bottom of the page.)
Save Act is Up for a Vote by the House. For the third time. Now, as part of a Reconciliation Bill.
Notes:
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 American Act (formerly the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) is being considered by the House. Again.
Below is a not-short summary of what the Act includes.
VOTING
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.
2. PROVING CITIZENSHIP
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.
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 noted 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 requited 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.
3. CONNECTING SYSTEMS
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.
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:
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.”
The SAVE America Act does not provide information on how these notices and opportunities to fix a mistake would be carried out.
4. ELECTION STAFF PENALTIES
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 above information are from:
Factcheck.org A Project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. March, 18, 2026
USA Today. March 20, 2026, available with subscription
Input your opinion to The NC State Board of Elections
Absentee Voting, Photo IDs, Recounting Ballots and Voting Sites Rule Changes. Click to add your input online, by email, in person or by mail. Due by July 15.
Proposed Absentee Voting Rules. Input extended to July 16. See media release with more details here.
Campaign Finance Rules. Input July 1-August 31. See media release with more details here.
League of Women Voters of Catawba Valley (LWVCV) is a nonpartisan grassroots organization dedicated to empowering voters and defending democracy. The League works to inform and engage the community and it encourages citizens to participate in government.