Republicans are fumbling the SAVE Act

Comments: by Keith Naughton, opinion contributor - 05/15/26 10:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Keith Naughton, opinion contributor - 05/15/26 10:00 AM ET Comments: Link copied Getty Images Last week, I received an email asking me to update my voter information. Too bad it was from a county I had moved away from nearly three years ago. I doubt that is unusual; efficiently and safely managing the voter rolls is not exactly a priority in local government. As a result, America s voter rolls are a mess. Past elections have shown long tabulation times, broken voting machines, voter registration errors, deceased voters on the rolls and millions of double-registered voters — that is, voters who move and end up being registered in more than one jurisdiction (apparently you can add me to that list). And there is little indication that anything is changing. The public is clearly concerned with vote security. Polls by Politico and YouGov show majorities in favor of voter ID and plurality support for cleaning up the voter rolls. Even a sizable minority of Democratic voters are in favor, a rarity in our highly polarized political environment. Politico reports that 52 percent of those polled are in favor of requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, but that underestimates the strength of the issue. Only 18 percent are opposed, including only 32 percent of Democrats. The problem is the high number of undecided voters, with 13 percent unsure and 17 percent saying they neither support nor oppose it. YouGov found that 59 percent of all voters support Requiring Document Proof of Citizenship to Vote, with 29 percent opposed. That includes 35 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of independents. Again, there is a relatively high percentage of unsure voters, at 12 percent (17 percent of independents). Voting by non-citizens was considered a serious or somewhat serious problem by 45 percent of voters, against 43 percent who disagreed. However, YouGov significantly oversamples Democrats. When broken out by partisanship, 41 percent of independents agreed against 44 percent who disagreed, with 14 percent unsure. Republicans overwhelmingly agreed at 82 percent. Considering that vote security has primarily been a Republican issue, these numbers are remarkably high — particularly as President Trump is net unfavorable in the same poll by 19 points and runs negative on every issue surveyed. Yet, Republicans are having a difficult time passing the SAVE Act and its voter security requirements. That Republicans cannot pass a voter security measure is a testament to their bad strategy and even worse communications. The public relations effort by Republicans and Trump has so far just been repeating polling numbers and haranguing holdout senators, with no discernible effort to reach out to the still sizable number of voters on the fence. Luckily, there is still plenty of opportunity. Consider the problem of double registration. In the last year, more than 3 million Americans moved states, with millions more changing counties. That s a lot of voter registrations that need to be deleted. Removing children and those who choose not to register to vote (approximately 27 percent of the electorate), that leaves us with about 2 million voters who should be dropped via an interstate move. Another 11.7 million intra-state moves adds another 8 million voters or so. When a voter moves and registers in a new jurisdiction, the former county voter registrar is supposed to get a notification and update their rolls. Counties can also update their rolls by putting their lists through the National Change Of Address database. But how many of these understaffed, underfunded county election boards are faithfully updating their voter rolls? Clearly, not enough. (Worth noting, death certificate copies are not just issued to the family of the deceased but also to the local election board.) What is the true extent of double registration? Based on a 2017 report, at least 7.2 million voters may have been double-registered. Nine years later, is there any chance that figure is lower than it was then? In addition, Virginia, Oregon and Pennsylvania have reported thousands of non-citizens illegally registered. That s just three states. If all 50 states and the District of Columbia had to fully review their voter rolls, how big would that number be? And that gets to the issue of undecideds in the polling. With 42 percent of Politico poll respondents on the fence over voter ID and more aggressively removing unconfirmed voters, there is a large reservoir of potential public support Trump and the Republicans are making no effort to harness. Democrats and their sycophants in the media are another target Trump and Republicans are letting off the hook. Democrats correctly claim that non-citizen voting is quite rare, and that such voting is already illegal. But that could play right into the Republicans hands — if only they had a clue. There s nothing the pu

Republicans are fumbling the SAVE Act

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