President Donald Trump erupted Friday at members of his own party over their failures to adhere to his preferred name for a major voter requirements bill.
That bill is the SAVE Act, or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, a bill that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. Backed by Trump, the bill has sparked concern among critics who say it could significantly depress voter turnout.
“IT’S ‘SAVE AMERICA ACT,’ NOT ‘SAVE ACT,’” Trump wrote Friday on his social media platform Truth Social. “REPUBLICANS MUST START USING THE TERM, ‘SAVE AMERICA ACT’ — MUCH MORE POTENT, AND DESCRIPTIVE!”
While the bill has been casually referred to as the “SAVE America Act” by some, its official name is, in fact, the “SAVE Act,” according to text of the bill published on the federal government’s congressional website.
Citizenship is already a requirement for citizens to vote in the United States, and the requirement as outlined in the SAVE ACT could pose challenges to the 52% of registered U.S. voters who do not possess an unexpired passport, or the 11% of registered voters who do not have access to their birth certificate.