House Republicans passed the SAVE Act on Wednesday evening along near-party lines — a controversial piece of legislation, workshopped by right-wing influencers, that would update the National Voter Registration Act to require proof of citizenship to vote.
The bill, which has no chance of passing in the Senate, was seized on by pro-Trump commentators to try to attack the Democrats who had voted against it — but other observers on social media were having none of it, and nor were the Democrats themselves, who blasted the bill as a cynical stunt to undermine confidence in U.S. elections.
"198 Democrats voted no to the SAVE act primarily because non-citizens already can't vote," wrote the account @llamalaikum. "Why do Republicans insist on making laws against things that are already illegal? Why do you MAGA morons want so damn much government oversight? What the hell is wrong with y'all?"
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"Yes, 198 Democrats voted against the SAVE Act because it's f------ pointless, xenophobic/racially based, and a pathetic waste of time when Congress could be passing real legislation that accomplishes something," wrote the account @SethFromThe716. "Nobody's trying to allow non-citizens to vote, and they already can't."
Elected Democratic lawmakers pointed out that not only was the bill pointless, the entire point of bringing it to a vote was to convince Americans that there is an epidemic of illegal noncitizen voting — which is not true.
"When we say that the right to vote is under attack, we’re not talking about hypotheticals," posted Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA). "It is under attack right here, right now with Republicans' 'SAVE' Act."
"NEWSFLASH for my GOP colleagues: It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections, punishable by prison time and even deportation," wrote Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL). "The SAVE Act is another attempt to sow doubt about the integrity of our elections by the same extremists who brought us Jan. 6th."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), meanwhile, blasted the whole enterprise as "Part of the blueprint of Trump's Project 2025" — the Heritage Foundation proposal to reshape the entire federal civil service into MAGA loyalists, bring the FBI and Justice Department under partisan command of the president, and eliminate dozens of core federal programs. "You can't fool the American people; they're smarter than you think. We know what you really want to do," he said.
