US Senate prepares to take up debate on restrictive voting bill

A sweeping restrictive voting bill that would require proof of US citizenship for new voters, among other measures, could be debated in the Senate as early as Tuesday.The Save America Act is a rebranded version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act, or the Save Act, a bill that has been circulating through Congress in some iteration for more than two years.The US House passed the bill earlier this year, but it faces steep odds in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to move forward because of the filibuster rule. Republican senators including the majority leader, John Thune, face heavy lobbying to lift the filibuster to advance the act, but Thune has said he doesn’t have the votes.Debate in the Senate is likely to last many days, an effort by Republicans to demand attention on what they claim is an issue of insecure elections and to “put Democrats on the record”, Thune said.Democrats are uniformly opposed to the legislation and expected to block its passage through the Senate. They say the legislation would disenfranchise millions of American voters who don’t have birth certificates or other documents readily available – both Republicans and Democrats who would be newly registering to vote.Federal law already requires that voters in national elections be US citizens. But the legislation would lay out strict new requirements for voters to prove their status. The bill would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and to present approved identification when they go to the polls, among other new rules that Donald Trump and his most loyal supporters are pushing as part of an effort to assert more federal control over elections.Last week, the president threatened not to sign any bills until Congress approves the legislation.Ahead of the debate, Trump took to social media to rally lawmakers to get the legislation passed.He insisted that the Save America Act is “one of the most IMPORTANT & CONSEQUENTIAL pieces of legislation in the history of Congress” in a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning.He has claimed, baselessly, that undocumented citizens are voting in droves in federal elections, which experts say is exceedingly rare. The president is also pushing for an amended version of the bill that includes, among other items, a ban on mail-in ballots and bans on transgender people participating in women’s sports and gender-affirming surgeries for minors. If this version were to pass in the Senate – which is unlikely – it would also have to go back to the House.“Only sick, demented, or deranged people in the House or Senate could vote against THE Save America Act. If they do, each one of these points, separately, will be used against the user in his/her political campaign for office,” the president wrote. “A guaranteed loss!”