Trump calls for government shutdown if Congress does not pass SAVE Act

The house is A continuation resolution aimed at funding the government and preventing a shutdown at the end of the month, just weeks before the November election, is expected to go to a vote on Wednesday. The vote is likely to fail.

The bill ties continued funding for the federal government to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act), a law that would make it harder for Americans to vote by requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Combining the two bills is a doomed endeavor. Yet Republicans who control the House, led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), are following the lead of former President Donald Trump, who is calling for a government shutdown if the SAVE Act is not passed.

“If Republicans don't pass the SAVE Act and every bit of it, they should not agree to a continuation resolution in any way,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

“The Democrats are registering TENS OF THOUSANDS of illegal voters right now – they will be voting in the 2024 Presidential election and they should not be allowed to do so,” Trump claimed. “In our most important election in history, or any election, only American citizens should vote!”

There is no evidence that mass illegal voter registration is taking place ahead of the November election. All 50 states legally prohibit noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and only a few communities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. The claim made by Trump and other Republicans that noncitizen voting is a widespread problem that affects election results has been repeatedly refuted by reputable research institutes and election observers.

The SAVE Act would require Americans to present physical documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote — this includes documents such as a passport or birth certificate, or a combination of other documents such as REAL ID cards, naturalization certificates, consular birth certificates obtained abroad, military IDs, or adoption papers. The list is extensive and confusing, as most standard IDs do not list the person's place of birth, but rather their current address.

A regular driver's license or Social Security card, for example, would no longer be accepted as identification, and since many states require regular renewal of voter registration, the new legislation would impose a financial and logistical burden on voters who do not have these documents readily available.

In July, a survey conducted by the University of Maryland's Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement found that one in ten adults, or about 21.3 million eligible voters, do not have easy access to documents proving their citizenship.

The SAVE Act would also make it more difficult to register to vote by mail, as prospective voters would have to submit their proof of citizenship in person at an election office or, in certain states, at their polling place on Election Day.

Another insidious provision of the law would make it a crime to register “any candidate for election to federal office who cannot provide documentary evidence of his or her U.S. citizenship” and allow private lawsuits against election officials accused of registering noncitizens.

On Wednesday, Trump wrote that a vote on the SAVE Act “must take place BEFORE the election, not AFTER the election when it's too late.” In reality, it would be impossible to impose such strict requirements on voters, with less than 50 days left until Election Day and early voting already available in some states.

But it was never about defending the integrity of the election. For the former president, the persistent claim that Democrats are supporting illegal voters to steal the election from him is just one of many lies he has concocted in service of his own political ambitions. Trump is already laying the groundwork to repeat his 2020 claims of a stolen election, but this time he has the Republican Party fully on his side.