President Donald Trump and his administration intended to pass a bill that would make it mandatory for all voters to prove their citizenship. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act initiative promotes the use of valid photo identification before casting ballots.
The bill also talked about reforms in mail-in votes. However, now, it does not seem like the act will pass altogether. If this happens, the situation for the Trump administration is not going to be very favorable, according to experts. They needed this bill to have a good shot at winning the midterm elections, experts say.
Former attorney Joyce Vance took to Substack to explain why she thinks the bill will miss the window required for Trump.
She explains, “Trump wanted his party to enact the SAVE Act because it was supposed to make it more difficult for citizens he thinks are Democrats to vote: Its strict ID requirements would have impacted poor people, elderly people, students, married women and others.”
The House passed the SAVE Act, but the Senate hasn’t yet voted on it.
President Trump has requested a survey to tag @LeaderJohnThune, so he can see your support.
A. Watermarked Paper Ballot
B. Same Day Voting
C. Voter Photo ID
D. Proof of Citizenship
E. All of the above. pic.twitter.com/BTDKHpZmxw
— 𝔉🅰𝒏 Karoline Leavitt (@WHLeavitt) May 9, 2025
Vance added, “Although Trump pushed hard for its passage, most recently during the State of the Union address, enough Senate Republicans defected to make passage a possibility too remote to pursue.”
She highlighted how the party unity that Trump needed to push this bill was not met.
She claimed, “Republicans attempted a ‘talking filibuster’ to get the bill across the finish line, but the procedural unity that would have required failed to materialize…North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, Utah’s John Curtis, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski and possibly others who weren’t named broke ranks.”
According to her, this was a “major loss for the president.”
Trump had been pushing this narrative for quite a while, claiming the Democrats cheated in the past election. He had previously showcased an interest in nationalizing voting, which got major criticism from the opposition.
🚨 WOW: A new ad is now airing demanding the Senate pass the SAVE America Act with 50 plus 1. No rule changes. No nuking the filibuster. Just use the existing rules and make Democrats actually stand there and talk. If 51 Republicans show up united, the other side has to… pic.twitter.com/SPoXOLJRY4
— ⁿᵉʷˢ Barron Trump 🇺🇸 (@BarronTNews_) February 27, 2026
The presence of Tulsi Gabbard at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) raid of Fulton County also raised quite a few eyebrows.
Former White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews called out Trump’s desperate measure as a tactic to manipulate the results. She told MS Now, “I think they’re trying to cast doubt for the 2026 midterm elections because they know the results are not going to be in their favor.”
However, not everyone believes the SAVE Act would be a help for Trump. Marc Novicoff from The Atlantic claimed that it would have a worse effect on the election results for the Republicans.
Exposing the weird predicament of the whole scenario, he writes, “Making voting more difficult would most likely hurt Republicans’ chances…meanwhile, Democrats, who insist that Trump and a MAGA Congress are existential threats to American democracy, refuse on principle to help Republicans sabotage themselves.”
