Democrats are fighting hard against the Republican-backed Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act, saying it would erect roadblocks for Americans seeking to register to vote or cast a ballot.
As the Senate began several days of debate about the bill March 17, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., emphasized the problems he said the legislation would cause.
The act “would force Americans to register (to vote) only in person, something only 5% of Americans do today,” he told reporters.
Schumer is correct that the act would require documentary proof of citizenship be presented in person to register to vote. But he’s wrong about the percentage of Americans who register to vote in person, according to federal data. Federal surveys show it’s higher than that.
With President Donald Trump’s strong support, the House passed the SAVE America Act in February following years of falsehoods and exaggerations about noncitizen voting, something that rarely occurs.
What does the bill say about in-person voter registration?
The bill says someone seeking to register to vote “shall not be registered to vote in an election for federal office unless the applicant presents documentary proof of United States citizenship in person to the office of the appropriate election official” by the registration deadline.
Eliza Sweren-Becker, deputy director for the voting rights and election program at the liberal Brennan Center for Justice, said this requirement would apply not only to new registrants and those registering in a new state, but also to potentially a lot of people who don’t consider themselves new registrants.
For instance, depending on how a state interpreted the bill’s language, moving to a new county within a state or to a new voting precinct could count as a new voter registration and trigger the citizenship proof requirement.
States’ decisions on how to classify residential moves will affect whether the documents are needed, Sweren-Becker said.
The law is also vague about who qualifies as “an election official,” she said. Would that mean only election workers? Or would an employee of a motor vehicle agency — where many voting registrations are made — qualify?
How many Americans currently register to vote in person?
Data from the federal Election Assistance Commission shows the percentage of voters who register in person is significantly higher than Schumer’s count.
A Schumer spokesperson told PolitiFact the senator referred to a report by the liberal Center for American Progress that used data from a 2022 survey by the Election Assistance Commission. The report said 5.9% of voters registered in person at election offices.
But this data is outdated and excludes in-person registration at other government offices and at polling places.
Every two years, the Election Assistance Commission compiles the Election Administration and Voting Survey. The most recent edition reflects 2024 election cycle dataincluding the methods Americans used to register to vote during the two years before the 2024 election.
The survey tracked at least six ways voters would have registered in person: at election offices (6%); at polling places and voting sites (2.2%); at public assistance offices (1%); at disability services offices (0.1%); at armed forces recruitment offices (0.1%); and at other public facilities, such as libraries (1.8%).
Collectively, these add up to 11.2%.
“Clearly, more than the 5% or 6% going to elections offices are registering in person,” said Matthew Weil, vice president for governance at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank.
An even larger share of voter registrations — 30.7% — came from motor vehicle agencies. Federal law allows voters to register to vote when they get driver’s licenses or do other automobile-related tasks. (For another 8.7% of voters, the registration method was not recorded.)
Because some states allow voter registration online through motor vehicle agencies, and states’ policies on voter registration at those agencies vary, it’s unclear what share of that 30.7% is occurring in person versus online. The data doesn’t specify, a spokesperson for the Election Assistance Commission told PolitiFact.
But voting administration experts said it was highly likely that many such registrations required an in-person visit.
So the percentage of-in person voter registrations before the 2024 election was between 11% (if all motor vehicle agency registrations were online, which is unlikely) and 42% (if every motor vehicle agency interaction was in person).
The survey listed four categories that do not require registering in person, and collectively they accounted for almost half of all voter registrations before the 2024 election. Automatic voter registration — an option in some states where voters are registered automatically unless they opt out — accounted for 25.2%. Online registration accounted for 13.9%; mail, email and fax registrations accounted for 8.3%; and voter registration drives accounted for 2%.
“A sizable share of Americans do register online and by mail, sharing their drivers license information for identity verification or showing ID when they vote,” said Lisa Bryant, a political scientist at California State University-Fresno. “These convenient options will very likely disappear if SAVE were passed.”
Our ruling
Schumer said the SAVE America Act “would force Americans to register only in person, something only 5% of Americans do today.”
The bill under consideration in the Senate would require documentary proof of citizenship be presented in person to register to vote.
However, Schumer significantly understated the percentage of people who register in person; before the 2024 election, it was between 11% and 42%, depending on how many registrations stemmed from in-person visits to motor vehicle agencies, a data point that is not being collected.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True.
Senior correspondent Amy Sherman contributed to this article.
RELATED: President Trump wants to slash voting by mail. About 1 in 4 Republicans voted that way in 2024
