Version imprimableThe central features of the act require that would-be first-time voters must produce valid photo identification and proof of citizenship, and that states must restrict mail in ballots. It also calls for regular purges of the voter rolls to eliminate non-legal voters. In fact, there is very little non-citizen voting and no indication of any problem with mail ballots.
In the United States, state laws, not federal laws, govern elections. At present, most Americans can register to vote by showing a driver’s license or social security number. On election day, they simply have to sign in. The SAVE Act requirements threaten to make it impossible for millions of voters to participate in the November 2026 and future elections. According to research by the Brennan Center for Justice and the Campaign Legal Center, more than 21 million eligible American citizens do not have immediate access to proof of citizenship. Many of these are Black, Latino and poor. Trump also wants to eliminate mail-in voting, but eight states will millions of voters have an all-mail election, or universal mail-in voting system.
In addition to the proposed SAVE Act, in several states Trump and the Republicans have redrawn electoral districts to give themselves more seats in Congress and for years they have purged election rolls to eliminate likely Democratic voters.
Even with all of these measures, Republicans may lose both houses of Congress because of Trump’s unpopular war Iran, rising prices, and the immigration police (ICE) murder of both immigrants and citizens. Only37% support Trump and his war. Desperate, Trump may turn to force.
Trump’s speech was intended to create a sense that elections are fraudulent and to justify greater federal control over them. He has stated that he is prepared to send troops or immigration police (ICE) to polling places, supposedly to protect the election process, though he has no legal power to do so. It is a federal crime for the military to interfere in elections and some states ban guns in polling places, though others permit them.
His claims of fraud lay the basis for Trump to invoke the National Emergency Act and deploy troops and other federal agencies to polling places, a development which would intimidate voters and possibly keep them from the polls. The American Civil Liberties Union and other such group are preparing for such an eventuality as are local poll-watcher organizations. Trump has been preparing the American people to accept soldiers on their streets. He has in this term sent troops to California, Oregon, Illinois, Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C. The next step would be sending them to all states.
If Trump does declare a national emergency and send in troops, he could have them seize the ballots or take over the vote counting process. The deployment of troops could thus even be the beginning of a coup: ignoring the actual election outcomes, declaring the Republicans the victors in the Congressional elections, and then ruling by fiat. This possibility has been widely debated in liberal journals and by intellectuals such as historian Timothy Snyder.
We on the left will have to be vigilant and active in the movement to protect voters’ rights. And ready to join protests against the presence of troops or ICE at the polling places. We will need mass, peaceful but militant resistance.
19 July 2026
