Like a truculent child, on March 8, 2026, Trump stated that he would not sign any Congressional legislation until Congress passed what he has entitled the Save America Act. While Trump, like the TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) memes express, chickened out, the intent is still present. Many of the changes in the Act were outlined in Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, more commonly referred to as Project 2025.
Trump is pushing this Act although it is clear that Article I, Section 4 of the United States Constitution clearly states: “The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to places of choosing Senators.” State legislatures are to determine when elections are scheduled, how voters can register, and where they can cast their ballots. Under the Constitution, the Executive Branch has NO responsibility for or control of elections, so Trump is pushing the hapless Republican members of Congress to do his bidding once again instead of abiding by their Constitutional oaths.
Trump’s Act would require individuals to provide documentary proof of United States citizenship in the form of birth certificates, passports, or military ID when registering to vote in federal elections and photo ID at the polls. Trump and his supporters allege that the Act is needed to prevent non-citizens from voting. However, it is already illegal for people who are not citizens to vote and the voter registration form warns that people who make false statements can be fined, imprisoned, or deported. They can also lose their ability to ever become U.S. citizens. Under this new Act, voters requesting a mail-in ballot or returning a mail-in ballot must submit a copy of their government-issued photo identification. States would be required to submit their voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in order to be cross-referenced with federal citizenship data to purge ineligible voters. Voters who cannot provide the required documentation must be purged from existing voter rolls.
A review of state voting data reveals that cases of noncitizens voting are minimal and has affected the outcome of no election. Therefore, Trump’s new Act is not directed toward noncitizen voting. This Act is to stop U.S. citizens of color and naturalized citizens from voting. Trump is aware that many people of color and naturalized citizens do not have drivers’ licenses, original birth certificates, or passports and they also have difficulty obtaining these documents although they are citizens of the United States. Statistics show that the vast majority of people of color in the United States were born here. Trump’s authoritarian agenda is to suppress the right to vote of United States citizens. Trump has already taken the first steps to implement the Project 2025 voting agenda by undermining, weakening, and demoralizing the Department of Justice which is responsible for enforcing the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. Other steps to deprive citizens of the right to vote in the Project 2025 Agenda and which Trump has included in the Save America Act include the following:
1. Criminalizing voter registration and ballot correction mistakes which could lead to prosecutions of voters and election officials for simple, unintentional mistakes;
2. Giving the federal government access to state voter rolls allowing the administration to purge voter rolls as they see fit; and 3. Prohibiting the FBI from “engaging, in general, in activities related to combating the spread of so-called misinformation and disinformation by Americans who are not tied to any plausible criminal activity.” That is why Trump picked Kash Patel to head the FBI.
The Leadership Human Rights Conference on Civil and Human Rights said this after Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing: “Throughout today’s hearing Mr. Patel confirmed that he lacks both the professional experience and the temperament to lead this important federal agency that investigates a range of civil and human rights violations. His disturbing past statements and many of his troubling and misleading responses to questions during the hearing disqualify him from serving as director of the FBI.”
In voting against Kash Patel’s nomination to head the FBI, Republican Senator Susan Collins said, “Mr. Patel has made numerous politically charged statements in his book and elsewhere discrediting the work of the FBI, the very institution he has been nominated to lead,” and Democratic Senator Dick Durban stated that Patel “has repeatedly expressed his intention to use our nation’s most important law enforcement agency to retaliate against his political enemies.”
Piece by piece, the Trump administration is trying to dismantle our democratic processes and protections which have stood the test of time and strip away the fundamental rights that have been hard-won by the very people who have helped to build this country physically and philosophically.
Simply put, Trump is trying to take away our vote. Don’t let him.
