Republicans counter Democrat claims on SAVE Act voter ID legislation

Republicans in Congress are resisting Democrats’ claims that their marquee Voter ID legislation It would wreak havoc on the elections in the country.

Congressional Democrats have criticized the Protecting American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act as a tool of voter suppression — saying it is a bill that allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to monitor American voter information and create barriers for married women to vote, among several other claims.

Besides requiring photo ID to vote, the bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, authorize states to actively verify the names of noncitizens and remove them from voter rolls, expand information sharing with federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, to verify citizenship, and create new criminal penalties for registering noncitizens to vote.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., right, criticized the Save America Act as “Jim Crow 2.0” and warned that it would be a mechanism for widespread voter suppression. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

Trump has repeatedly pushed for voter ID, calling the election reforms in the bill “can’t-miss re-election in the midterms and beyond.”

Some of the bill’s strongest supporters have fact-checked these claims in interviews with Fox News Digital.

“If you look at what he’s actually saying, rather than what Democrats are arguing forcefully, which I think is disingenuous right now — they’re ignoring the House’s requirements,” he added. Save America Act “These requirements are really generous,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told Fox News Digital. “It’s really flexible.”

Here’s a closer look at some of the most common claims Democrats have made about the Save America Act — and how Republican supporters of the bill are responding.

Claim: “Voter Suppression Federalism”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck SchumerNew York State has routinely criticized the Save America Act as “Jim Crow 2.0” — segregation laws in the Deep South largely eliminated by the Civil Rights Act.

“This has nothing to do with protecting our elections, and everything to do with federalizing voter suppression,” Schumer said earlier in February on the Senate floor.

But Republicans argued that Democrats were “hypocritical” on the voter suppression charge, especially when it came to voter ID.

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Rep. Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, speaks to reporters after a news conference on Capitol Hill on October 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnick/Getty)

Sen. Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, whose state is one of 36 states that requires or requires some form of identification before voting, said: Voter ID laws Across the country it had no impact on turnout.

“This idea that they say it’s going to prevent any voting, that hasn’t happened anywhere,” Scott told Fox News Digital. “They said that when Georgia passed it, and they had record turnout. So that’s not true at all. I mean, how many people do you know that don’t have an ID?”

Claim: DHS will have access to legitimate voter data

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., argued during a news conference that this iteration of the SAVE Act — under its new name — is “worse” than the version the House passed in April because it gave DHS’s access to US voter data.

He appeared to be referring to a provision that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to initiate potential deportation proceedings against any noncitizen whose name appears on the state’s voter rolls.

“This release, as I understand it, will give DHS the ability to obtain voting records from states across the country,” Jeffries said earlier in February. “Why do these extremists think this is a good idea? That we as Democrats would accept it at this moment in time? We would like the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which have brutally and violently targeted ordinary Americans, to have more data about the American people? It’s outrageous.”

Democrats are “really reaching” for criticism, said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who led both the SAVE Act and the SAVE America Act in the House.

“This actually allows and enables states to be able — as many want them to do — to check their voter rolls against the citizenship database which they are currently prohibited from doing under a judicial interpretation of federal law,” Roy said.

“So, the long way of saying, no — the SAVE system is in place, we have the citizenship data, and we will simply allow the voter rolls to be checked against the citizenship data.”

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Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, during a confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday, January 16, 2025. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Claim: Married women’s right to vote is suppressed

Another argument Democrats often repeat is that the legislation would make it harder for American women to vote — especially married women whose last names now differ from those on their birth certificates.

This is because the bill requires proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or Real ID, to register to vote.

“Republicans are not really afraid of noncitizens voting, which we all know is already illegal and already grounds for deportation,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., said earlier this month. “They are afraid of women voting.”

“If your current name does not exactly match and match the name on your birth certificate or citizenship papers, you may be prevented from registering to vote, even if you are a lifelong naturalized citizen or a U.S.-born citizen,” Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, said during the same news conference.

But Roy again said that was not true.

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“This is absolute nonsense, and we specifically allow a provision to be made to ensure that no one can be left behind,” he said.

“If a woman tries to register to vote with different names on her birth certificate and driver’s license,” Roy said. “We literally put it into law that all you have to do is sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that says, ‘I am that person. “This is my birth certificate…and this is my driver’s license, which reflects my married name.”