U.S. House passes bill written by Rep. Chip Roy that could disenfranchise millions of voters

The U.S. House on Thursday passed a bill written by Austin-San Antonio Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy that civil-rights advocates argue sets up such steep voter ID requirements that it would stop millions of people from registering to cast their ballots.

Roy’s SAVE Act, which passed the GOP-controlled House 220 to 208, would require Americans to show a valid passport, a birth certificate or another form of identification that proves they’re a U.S. citizen before they can register and vote.

At least 21 million U.S. voters — or more than 9% — lack ready access to those documents, according to research by the voting rights-focused Brennan Center for Justice. An additional 4 million don’t not have the documents at all because the paperwork has been lost, damaged or stolen.

“The House has just passed one of the worst pieces of voting legislation in American history. The Senate must stop it,” Brennan Center President Michael Waldman said in a statement. “The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens.”

The legislation now heads to the U.S. Senate where Republicans hold a six-seat majority. It follows a similar executive order signed by President Donald Trump two weeks ago, which voting-rights groups have already sued to stop.

Roy, one of the House’s furthest-right members, argues the proposal is necessary to prevent people in the U.S. illegally from casting ballots.
“It’s a growing and increasing problem,” Roy told the Texas Tribune prior to the vote.

Despite Roy’s claim, current federal law already bars non-citizens from voting and imposes serious criminal penalties if they do. Despite repeated claims to the contrary by Trump and other GOP officials, there’s no evidence to suggest non-citizens regularly engage in voter fraud.

SAVE Act critics argue the legislation also creates a special barrier for people who changed their legal names through marriage — the majority of them women. An estimated 69 million women and 4 million men have last names that no longer match the ones on their birth certificates, the Center for American Progress reports.

“Republicans would force Americans into a paperwork nightmare, burying voter registration under a mountain of bureaucracy and red tape,” U.S. Rep. Joseph Morelle, D-New York, said in testimony against the bill, according to The Hill.

“Under the SAVE Act, most Americans would be unable to register to vote using their Real ID,” Morelle added. “Further, under the SAVE Act, almost 70 million American women will be unable to register to vote using their birth certificate simply because they changed their name upon marriage.”

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This article appears in Apr 2-15, 2025.