The SAVE America Act squeaked through the House this week by five votes.
The final tally was 218-213, with Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas standing as the lone Democrat to cross party lines.
On Friday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) gave Republicans their 50th vote late Friday afternoon, telling Maine Wire the revised bill strikes an appropriate balance between election security and voter access.
“The law is clear that in this country only American citizens are eligible to vote in federal elections. In addition, having people provide an ID at the polls, just as they have to do before boarding an airplane, checking into a hotel, or buying an alcoholic beverage, is a simple reform that will improve the security of our federal elections and will help give people more confidence in the results,” she told Maine Wire.
“Requiring voters to produce passports or birth certificates on Election Day — as opposed to just a state-issued ID — would have placed an unnecessary burden on the voters. That provision is no longer in the bill, and dropping this requirement was key to getting my support.”
With Will Collins on board, Republicans have enough support to pass the bill even without additional backing, with Vice President JD Vance ready to break any tie.
Unfortunately, 50 votes only get the GOP so far. The legislation still lacks the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear the bill is “dead on arrival.”
And Collins herself opposes scrapping the filibuster to ram the measure through.
“I oppose eliminating the legislative filibuster,” Collins said.
“The filibuster is an important protection for the rights of the minority party, that requires Senators to work together in the best interest of the country. Removing that protection would, for example, allow a future Congress controlled by Democrats to pass provisions on anything they want — DC Statehood, open borders, or packing the Supreme Court — with just a simple majority of Senators.”
President Trump, however, is promising that requiring a photo ID to vote will get done with or without Congress.
In a post on Truth Social, he accused Democrats of opposing Voter ID and citizenship verification because “they want to continue to cheat in Elections.”
He said this “was not what our Founders desired” and promised to present an “irrefutable” legal argument on the issue soon.
Trump vowed that “There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not,” and stated that Americans demand “Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability, Illness, or Travel.”
Trump also slammed Democrats as “horrible, disingenuous CHEATERS” for opposing Voter I.D., claiming they “boldly laugh in the backrooms” while opposing it.
He called the lack of Voter I.D. “even crazier, and more ridiculous, than Men playing in Women’s Sports, Open Borders, or Transgender for Everyone.”
Trump urged Republicans to make it “a CAN’T MISS FOR RE-ELECTION IN THE MIDTERMS, AND BEYOND,” noting that “Even Democrat Voters agree, 85%, that there should be Voter I.D.”
He called Democratic leaders “Crooked Losers like Schumer and Jeffries,” who label it “racist,” and promised to present legal arguments for action via an Executive Order.
Trump warned that if Democrats regain power, they will “PACK THE COURT with a total of 21 Supreme Court Justices” and warned the country “will never be the same if they allow these demented and evil people to knowingly, and happily, destroy it.”
Trump previously signed an executive order attempting to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements on federal voter registration forms.
That effort crashed into multiple legal challenges and has been systematically dismantled by the courts.
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