Voting rights advocates, Democrats slam Trump’s voter suppression push in State of the Union

Voting rights advocates and Democratic officials blasted President Donald Trump Tuesday night after he used his State of the Union address to promote the SAVE America Act — the most restrictive anti-voting bill in U.S. history — and repeat false claims of widespread election fraud.

Trump is pushing the bill despite the fact that studies and audits to show voter fraud is exceedingly rare.

Voting rights advocates say that the message is unmistakable: By elevating the SAVE America Act so prominently in his State of the Union, Trump is attempting to cement election denial and voting restrictions as central features of his second term.

The intensity of critics’ response also signaled how central the fight over the SAVE America Act has become for voting rights advocates, who argue the bill would disproportionately burden married women, rural, senior and low-income voters.

“The SAVE Act is an attack on the freedom to vote that would block millions of American citizens from voting,” Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the Voting Rights & Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said in a series of social media posts. 

“For most Americans, the SAVE Act would require a passport or birth certificate to register, documents that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to…” he added. “Roughly half of Americans don’t have a passport. Do you know where your birth certificate is?”

Morales-Doyle also directly rebutted Trump’s repeated claims that noncitizens are voting in large numbers.

“The evidence is clear: only citizens vote, with vanishingly rare exceptions,” he wrote. “Commonsense safeguards are already built into federal and state laws. Those safeguards work, as recent state investigations have only affirmed.”

Democrats echoed those concerns, arguing that Trump’s rhetoric was designed to undermine trust in elections.

“Tonight, Trump is trying to sow distrust in our public elections. “The SAVE America Act will only make it harder for millions of American citizens — women, rural voters, seniors — to vote,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) wrote on X. “The SAVE America ACT is voter suppression. We won’t stand for it.”

The backlash intensified as more Democratic lawmakers accused Trump of using unfounded fraud claims to justify sweeping new federal voting restrictions.

Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, rejected Trump’s claims outright.

“Our elections are secure, noncitizen voting is illegal, & both Republicans and Democrats win fair and square — to believe otherwise is to believe in the tooth fairy and the Loch Ness monster,” Morelle wrote on X.

Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas) argued that the legislation is fundamentally about restricting access to the ballot as a political calculation.

“Republicans’ SAVE America Act isn’t about ‘election integrity’ — it’s about silencing voters because [Republicans’] ideas can’t win at the ballot box,” she wrote. “The only way they can win is by making it harder for Americans to vote. That’s exactly what this bill does.”

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) pointed to the broader political context, noting that Trump has recently floated the idea of a federal “take over” of elections by Republicans.

“The SAVE Act is voter suppression, plain and simple,” she wrote. “One week after Trump called on Republicans to nationalize elections, they passed this bill.”

Lawmakers, advocacy groups and state officials also warned that the bill would disproportionately impact women who have changed their names, rural voters who lack easy access to government offices and Americans without passports or readily available birth certificates.

“Just so you know, if you changed your last name when you got married, you wouldn’t be able to vote unless you got an updated birth certificate with your new last name,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said in a social media post.

“It’s about making it harder for you to vote,” he added.

“President Trump is once again urging Congress to pass the dangerous SAVE Act,” the pro-voting group Campaign Legal Center said in a statement. “Let us be clear: This is blatantly anti-voter legislation that will block millions of Americans from casting a ballot, undermining our union and our democracy.”

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski (D) stressed that the sweeping voter suppression bill was merely a sign of desperation by Republicans who have faced plummeting approval ratings and lackluster turnout in recent elections. 

“Trump’s defense of the SAVE Act has NOTHING to do with ‘election integrity,’” Godlewski posted on social media. “Republicans are attempting to disenfranchise as many voters as possible ahead of the midterms they know they’re going to LOSE.”