SAVE Act Update: Where Federal Voter ID and Citizenship Verification Stand Heading into Recess
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By Patrice Johnson, Founder and Chair
Michigan Fair Elections Institute & Pure Integrity Michigan Elections
August 11, 2026
The Bottom Line
The U.S. House passed the SAVE America Act on February 11, 2026. Later the House attached related voter-identification provisions to a separate stock-trading bill. Neither measure has passed the Senate. Now, the Senate has left Washington this week for its summer recess without a final vote on either vehicle. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chair of the Senate Republican Steering Committee, said this week that Republicans intend to revisit both paths and a possible budget-reconciliation route in September. Whether either can reach 60 votes, or survive procedural limits on reconciliation, is unresolved.
Why This Matters in Michigan
According to a D.H.S. review of state voter rolls and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote in federal elections. Michigan is among the states that refused to share their voter files with D.H.S., so the real number is likely much higher. Yet even this limited analysis found more than a quarter of a million foreigners illegally registered to vote.
Some of MFEI's core work involves documenting Michigan's Qualified Voter File (QVF) and registration/removal practices, not federal legislative advocacy. But the SAVE America Act would intersect directly with issues our volunteer researchers have documented in Michigan:
The QVF citizenship-verification flag. Under a related Michigan measure (House Joint Resolution B) passed by the Michigan House in spring 2026, the Bureau of Elections would be required to conduct annual systematic reviews of the QVF to verify citizenship status against federal and state data and would have to flag any automatically registered voter who indicated citizenship without documentary proof. This is a category the QVF has been required to designate since June 30, 2025, per Michigan's House Fiscal Agency analysis. A federal documentary-proof requirement would layer on top of, not replace, that state-level flagging system.
Michigan's Enhanced license/ID (not the standard REAL ID, is the state-specific wrinkle). A standard Michigan REAL ID does not display citizenship and would not, by itself, satisfy the SAVE America Act's documentary-proof standard. That's true in nearly every state. Michigan is one of only five states (with Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington) that also offers a separate, optional Enhanced Driver's License or ID (EDL/EID), which does confirm citizenship and is accepted for federal border crossings.
Only the enhanced credential would likely qualify as documentary proof under the bill.
Naturalized citizens. The Center for American Progress estimates more than 440,000 naturalized citizens live in Michigan. Advocacy groups on both sides have flagged this population, along with married women whose current legal names do not match their birth certificates, as possibly facing moderate challenges under a documentary-proof standard, whether imposed by the state or federal government.
Litigation and ballot-measure context. A state constitutional amendment effort (Americans for Citizen Voting Michigan) already gathered signatures for a similar proof-of-citizenship requirement aimed at the November 2026 ballot, running on a parallel track to both HJR B and the federal bill. MFEI's Count 3 QVF findings and DOJ report material are relevant background for evaluating any of these proposals’ interaction with existing Michigan registration and list-maintenance procedures.
MFEI takes no position on whether the federal bill should pass. However, it’s affiliated Pure Integrity Michigan Elections, a 501(C)(4) nonprofit organization, strongly supports the measure and encourages supporters to contact their members of Congress. Our interest is in how any of these proposals would actually operate within Michigan’s registration and QVF infrastructure, which is where our documented findings are strongest.
What Sen. Scott Says May Happen in September
In the August 8 Breitbart News Saturday interview (links below0, Sen. Scott identified two paths Republicans plan to pursue when the Senate returns:
Another attempt at H.R. 7008. Scott said the plan is to bring the bill back for a vote, calculating that Democrats who say they support banning insider trading by members of Congress will now vote for the combined measure: "if we can get seven [Democrats] to vote for that and all of us vote for it, then we have a chance to get voter ID done."
Budget reconciliation. Scott said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is examining whether qualifying election-security provisions could move through reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority rather than 60 votes. Scott said Republicans “have a commitment” to pursue this in September, alongside funding priorities tied to Iran and China.
Scott also published a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal August 6, “Filibuster Abuse Has Destroyed Senate Debate," arguing the Senate should either require sustained floor debate before a vote or eliminate the 60-vote cloture threshold. Other Republicans, including Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), have publicly opposed changing the rule, and Majority Leader John Thune has said the votes to do so do not currently exist within the Republican conference.
These are Scott's stated positions and Republican strategy as one member has described it — not commitments from Senate leadership, and not confirmation that any path can reach passage. For those interested/without subscription, Senator Scott's radio interview hit on what happened last night is here. Listen using the link below:
Part I:
Part II:
Confirmed Legislative Status
Early August 2026: The Senate adjourned for recess without further action on S. 1383, H.R. 7008, or a reconciliation-based alternative.
July 27 and 29, 2026: Senate Republicans (Sens. Moody, Ricketts, and Moreno) made repeated unanimous-consent requests to pass H.R. 7008 outright or to schedule a passage vote. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) blocked each request, in one instance proposing the Senate instead take up a narrower stock-trading-only bill (S. 1498), which Sen. Moreno then objected to. These were unanimous-consent exchanges, not recorded votes defeating the bill, so H.R. 7008 remains pending on the Senate calendar.
July 22, 2026: The House passed H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, 232–198, with voter-ID provisions attached (thirteen Democrats voted yes).
March 26, 2026: The Senate failed, 53–47, to invoke cloture on a Husted amendment to S. 1383 that would have added the photo-ID requirement — short of the 60 votes needed. The bill has not advanced to a final passage vote since.
March 17, 2026: The Senate voted 51–48 on a motion to proceed to S. 1383 — a procedural step allowing debate to begin, not a vote on final passage. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the only Republican to vote no; Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) did not vote.
February 11, 2026: The House passed the SAVE America Act 218–213, on a near party-line vote (Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, voted yes). The Senate's vehicle for the bill is S. 1383.
What Remains Unresolved
The Byrd Rule question. Reconciliation bills are limited to provisions with a primarily budgetary effect; the Senate Parliamentarian has not yet ruled on whether citizenship-verification or voter-ID language would qualify. Comparable provisions have faced skepticism on these grounds in prior Congresses.
Whether seven Senate Democrats will support H.R. 7008. None has publicly committed to doing so following the July unanimous-consent standoffs.
Implementation concerns raised by opponents. Groups including the League of Women Voters and Voters Not Politicians argue that documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements would create administrative barriers for eligible citizens who lack ready access to a passport or birth certificate, citing married women with non-matching legal names and lower passport-ownership rates in some populations as examples. They note that noncitizen voting prosecutions nationally remain rare. Bill supporters, including Sen. Scott and Michigan state Rep. Bryan Posthumus, point to isolated confirmed cases, including a 2024 Ann Arbor prosecution, as justification for stronger verification.
September timeline. This is a stated Republican leadership goal, not a scheduled floor vote.
MFEI Analysis
MFEI can say from our own documentation work that any federal documentary-proof-of-citizenship mandate would not operate in a vacuum in Michigan. It would sit alongside an existing QVF citizenship-flagging requirement already in state law, a pending state constitutional ballot measure, and Enhanced ID rules that put Michigan in an unusual position relative to most other states.
We will continue tracking how these layers interact and will report plainly when the Senate Parliamentarian rules on the reconciliation question or when either chamber takes further recorded action.
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