The LuLac Edition #5, 591, March 4th, 2026

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

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This week we take another look at the SAVE  ACT which is about Voter ID and its implications.  But in US Today, columnist Chris Brennan provides much more information on how it will affect everyday Americans.

VOTER ID LAWS ARE POPULAR. TRUMP MAKING IT HARDER TO VOTE ISN'T. | OPINION

THE SAVE ACT DOES SO MUCH MORE THAN REQUIRE IDENTIFICATION TO VOTE. IT REQUIRES AMERICANS TO PROVIDE CERTAIN KINDS OF PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP TO REGISTER TO VOTE AND WHEN REQUESTING A MAIL BALLOT.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate appear poised to defeat legislation pushed by President Donald Trump that could have made it much harder for millions of Americans to vote.

But that's not enough. Democrats also have to win a messaging war with all voters about the so-called SAVE Act. And right now, the Republicans are winning that battle.

This debate often gets simplified to be called "voter ID," the idea that voters should have to show a valid, government-issued photo identification at polling places before casting a ballot. The U.S. Constitution dictates that states run elections. And 36 states currently have voter ID laws.

Trump couldn't care less about our Constitution. He wants to federalize elections, so he can control the outcomes. And he doesn't care if the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act makes it harder or even impossible for Americans to vote.

The SAVE Act does so much more than require identification to vote. It requires Americans to provide certain kinds of proof of citizenship to register to vote and when requesting a mail ballot.

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That creates unnecessary hurdles. Women who take their husband's last name when marrying would then have identification that doesn't match their birth certificate or passports. Just 48% of Americans even have a passport. And voters in so-called red states are less likely to have passports than voters in blue states or swing states.

There is strong support in public polling for voter ID laws. Trump's White House on Feb. 10 cited two polls from the Pew Research Center and Gallup that showed support at more than 80%.

Those are two reputable organizations. I read both polls. The questions were simple and straightforward about support for voter ID laws. They didn't touch on any of the nuances of how those laws can disenfranchise voters.  That’s the messaging war underway now.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, spent much of the past week acknowledging that his party didn't have the votes to pass what's also known as the SAVE America Act, which passed the House on Feb. 11. Trump, during his State of the Union address on Feb. 24, called Thune out by name when urging the Senate to pass the legislation

 

Trump loaded that call with his standard, easily debunked claims about Democrats cheating in elections, with undocumented people voting and "crooked mail-in ballots." He's been making those kinds of claims for  decades.

Trump has never produced any evidence of widespread voter fraud, maybe because Republicans like the Senate majority leader don't need it. They just swallow and then regurgitate his nonsense.

That's what Thune did the day after Trump's speech, telling Fox News he would hold a vote on the SAVE Act to "put the Democrats on the record" to make them "try and defend allowing noncitizens to vote in American elections." He predicted that would be a difficult vote to defend in November's midterm elections.

Thune is looking to trade a legislative defeat for a messaging win. Democrats should meet the challenge and ask voters why the president and Republicans in Congress want to make it harder for Americans to vote.

Here, the Democrats have an unlikely ally: Trump.

He must know the SAVE Act appears headed to defeat. And Trump fears the Democrats taking control of the House and maybe the Senate too in the midterms, because that would provide oversight for his many abuses of power in his second term. So Trump is now doing what he always does, trying to abuse his power.

The Washington Post on Feb. 26 reported that Trump has previewed a proposed executive order prepared by activists who support him to require voters to present identification to vote in November and to ban mail ballots. Those activists know their audience. Trump recently repeated his calls to federalize elections.

That's the story Democrats have to tell American voters again and again, until it sinks in, that Trump's frequent claims about rampant voter fraud and rigged elections have been vetted and debunked for years.

Context can help demonstrate that the claims are bunk.

Trump complained while campaigning in 2016, while a Democrat held the White House, that the election was rigged. And then he won. Trump's only election loss came in 2020 when he was president and controlled the federal government, which disputed his claims that the election was unfair. Trump whined about rigged elections again in 2024, while a Democrat held the White House. And he won again.

If Democrats are so good at rigging elections, why does Trump win when Democrats are in charge? Democrats need to drill down on that kind of context. Here's some more.

The Heritage Foundation, a far-right think tank that echoes Trump's claims, has a searchable database of confirmed cases of voter fraud from 1982 to 2025. This past week, it listed just 1,620 cases in those 43 years. I found just 100 cases of noncitizens voting and 387 cases of mail-ballot fraud.

For context, nearly 157 million votes were cast in the 2024 presidential election aloneTrump is not the first Republican to make unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud a part of his political identity. I've been writing about this for more than a decade, since the Pennsylvania legislature, controlled by Republicans in 2012, passed voter ID legislation that was signed into law by a Republican governor.

Those same Republicans, when the law was challenged in court, stipulated in front of the judge that they had no proof of alleged voter fraud to offer, despite that supposed threat being the motivation for the legislation.

The judge tossed the law, calling it unconstitutional while noting that it could have disenfranchised "hundreds of thousands" of Pennsylvania voters who lacked the kind of identification mandated in the legislation. That's what Trump and Thune and the Republicans in Congress who back the SAVE Act want to do to America. It's not enough for Democrats to just defeat the legislation. They have to tell the story of why it can never become law.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan.