On April 10, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) in a 220-208 vote. The bill, now awaiting a Senate vote, would require voters to present “documentary proof” of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Acceptable documents include a valid birth certificate, U.S. passport or a Real ID-compliant driver’s license that “indicates the applicant is a citizen.” Notably, state, military or tribal ID cards that don’t list a person’s birthplace wouldn’t satisfy the requirement on their own.
Republicans cite the SAVE Act as another step toward improved election security, while voting rights advocates are raising concerns that it would disenfranchise millions of voters who don’t have access to those documents.
Nevada—one of 14 states that doesn’t require a photo ID to vote—has found itself caught somewhere in the middle.
The Silver State has passed numerous laws expanding access to the polls in recent years, including a 2021 bill that mandated sending mail ballots to every registered voter who didn’t opt out. On the other hand, just over 73% of Nevada voters in November 2024 approved a petition-driven state ballot question that would amend the state constitution to require residents to present a photo ID before voting. The ballot question still needs to pass again in 2026 before it can become official.
These actions somewhat reflect a shift in Americans’ view of election security since 2020.
A Marist poll conducted ahead of the 2024 presidential election found that 58% of Americans expressed concerns that voter fraud would impact the results, with 52% citing the possibility that noncitizens would vote illegally. (It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in U.S. or state elections under penalty of perjury.) Eighty-six percent of participants who identified as Republicans shared this view, compared to only 33% of Democrats.
This growing sense of distrust largely stems from President Donald Trump’s widely debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was mired in widespread fraud. Countless studies and audits have failed to find compelling evidence supporting the claim. According to the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Nevadans account for just 10 of the 1,340 voter fraud convictions recorded nationwide since 1982.
The SAVE Act’s passage in the House led many of Nevada’s Democratic and progressive leaders to sound the alarm. Democratic U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto have already indicated they wouldn’t support it, while Attorney General Aaron Ford and Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar have also spoken out against it.
Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada (ACLU), shares similar concerns that the bill would disenfranchise married women and transgender voters whose names no longer match their birth certificates, rural and disabled people who rely on expedient mail ballot services and individuals who no longer have access to their original birth certificate due to homelessness or other reasons.
“IDs are not accessible to everybody. I know a lot of us take that for granted, but if you’re somebody who doesn’t have access to the nominal resources to be able to get one, it’s challenging,” Haseebullah says.
Mathilda Miller, government relations director for Native Voters Alliance of Nevada, adds that residents of Nevada’s 28 federally recognized tribal nations who are eligible to vote in U.S. elections may also be left out because tribal IDs don’t typically include one’s birthplace.
Rep. Mark Amodei, Nevada’s lone Republican Congressional representative who voted in favor of the SAVE Act, likens these concerns to “talking points.”
“For federal elections, you have to have proof of U.S. citizenship, and that’s kind of the end of it,” Amodei says.
According to the office of the Nevada Secretary of State, there are “numerous safeguards” in place to prevent any noncitizens or anyone ineligible to vote from casting a ballot, including proof of identity requirements baked into the voter registration process.
A mail voter himself, Amodei denies that proving one’s citizenship would add unnecessary barriers to the system. He adds that the apparent success of the 2024 Nevada voter ID ballot question is evidence that the majority of voters support his party’s election reform efforts.
“It doesn’t get those numbers by being a Democrat or Republican thing,” he says.
Haseebullah is keeping a close eye on the matter before it returns to the ballot in 2026.
“We’ll be involved in public education campaigns opposing it, but there are also unsettled legal issues surrounding it. The courts that have touched this issue in Nevada haven’t made clear that the question passes constitutional or statutory muster,” Haseebullah says. “So there’s a lot of space left for what may or may not end up happening.”
Similar campaigns to implement stricter election rules in Nevada haven’t made it very far. In 2023, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo proposed a bill that would have reversed the 2021 mail ballot policy, but it failed to pass out of either chamber of the Democrat-controlled Nevada Legislature. This year, state Rep. Greg Hafen, a Pahrump Republican, put forth a voter ID bill that died before it could be heard.
The SAVE Act also faces some challenges as it awaits a Senate vote. While Republicans hold 53 of 100 seats in that chamber, they’ll need 60 to overcome the filibuster.
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