Would the SAVE America Act Have Prevented the New Jersey Noncitizen Voter Snafu? Maybe, Maybe Not.
President Trump’s pet legislation—the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE America Act—would require Americans to provide documented proof of citizenship upon registering to vote, usually a passport or birth certificate. This, the act’s proponents argue, would prevent noncitizen actors from illegally registering and participating in American elections. The recently revealed registration mishap in New Jersey has led to renewed advocacy for the act. Vice President JD Vance weighed in; so, too, did Sen. Dave McCormick (R‑PA) and Trump’s “Rapid Response” social media account. (“Yet another reason to PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!”)
But it’s unclear if the SAVE America Act would have prevented what happened in New Jersey.
On the morning of July 21, New Jersey Gov. Miki Sherrill announced that a “serious software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System led to the registration of roughly 6,600 people who indicated that they were not U.S. citizens between June 2023 and June 2024.” The governor added that “preliminary analysis shows fewer than 400 individuals” voted. For context, there are approximately 6.68 million registered voters in New Jersey, and 4.3 million New Jerseyans voted in the November 2024 general election.
New Jersey has automatic voter registration. Any resident who interacts with the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission and meets eligibility requirements is registered to vote unless they opt out.
The 6,600 noncitizens in question did not try to break the law. They went to the commission for some other purpose (e.g., noncitizens are allowed to obtain a driver’s license). And they all selected “noncitizen” when prompted. Unfortunately, a software error (the governor’s team is still investigating) changed that selection to an affirmation of citizenship. The registrar, seeing that the individuals met the citizenship requirement and other eligibility requirements (e.g., 18 years old), automatically issued the voter registration.
Arizona was the first state to require documented proof of citizenship. The overwhelming majority of Arizona voters satisfy this requirement by showing a passport or birth certificate to the state’s Motor Vehicle Division when getting a driver’s license. The Motor Vehicle Division keeps a record of these interactions, including if the person is a citizen and if the person has documented proof of citizenship on file. Later, if the person registers to vote, the registrar pings the Motor Vehicle Division to see if the person already has documented proof of citizenship on file with the state. If the answer is “yes,” the person doesn’t need to provide a separate birth certificate or passport copy to the registrar.
This design is logical and reduces hassle: Why should a citizen have to dredge up his or her birth certificate if another government office already has a copy on file? It also means that a documented proof of citizenship requirement likely wouldn’t have prevented New Jersey’s snafu.
If New Jersey had the same system as Arizona, the 6,600 noncitizens in question still would have indicated that they are not citizens; accordingly, they wouldn’t have provided documented proof of citizenship. Nothing would have changed. The software error would have still indicated that they met the citizenship requirement. The registrar still would have relied on this inaccurate information. And the 6,600 individuals still would have been registered.
This assumes that the SAVE America Act’s documented proof of citizenship requirement would function in the same way that Arizona and other states (e.g., Georgia and Utah) have structured their systems. In such a case, as indicated, the SAVE America Act likely wouldn’t have prevented the New Jersey situation.
It’s possible that the final version of the SAVE America Act could be structured differently. It could require that even if the individual provides documented proof of citizenship to a motor vehicle division, he or she must also provide a birth certificate to the registrar for a new voter registration and every subsequent registration modification. This would have made the New Jersey error less likely, but it would impose new burdens on hundreds of millions of voting Americans.
All of this is to say: Be wary of politicians who say, “All of these problems will be fixed with my simple legislation.” That’s often not the case.