President Donald Trump said Friday he would sign an executive order imposing voter identification requirements for the November midterm elections if Congress fails to pass legislation mandating them. The announcement, made in a pair of posts on Truth Social, came two days after the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — better known as the SAVE America Act — on a near party-line vote of 218-213.

"There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!" Trump wrote. In a follow-up post minutes later, he added that he had "searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject" and would present what he called an "irrefutable" case in the form of an executive order.

Trump did not explain what legal basis he intended to cite. The U.S. Constitution delegates the administration of elections to state governments, and a federal judge in January permanently blocked a previous Trump executive order that attempted to impose citizenship verification and mail-in ballot deadlines on states. That ruling found the president lacks authority to unilaterally alter election procedures.

What the SAVE Act Would Do

The SAVE America Act, sponsored by Texas Rep. Chip Roy, would require Americans to present documentary proof of citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — before registering to vote in federal elections. It would also require voters to show photo identification at the polls, mandate that states purge noncitizens from voter rolls at more frequent intervals, eliminate mail-only voter registration, and impose criminal penalties on election officials who register applicants without verifying citizenship.

The bill is an expanded version of the original SAVE Act, which passed the House twice before — once during the 2024 presidential campaign and again last April — only to stall in the Senate both times.

Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was the only Democrat to vote for the bill Wednesday. Three other Democrats who had previously supported the earlier version — Jared Golden of Maine, Ed Case of Hawaii, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington — voted against it this time. Golden told reporters the two bills were fundamentally different. "They're not even the same bill," he said. "They're not even close."

Roy framed the legislation as consistent with founding principles. "Our Founders set forth our electoral processes 250 years ago, based upon the simple and ultimate principle that only Americans should vote," he said on the House floor ahead of the vote.

The Senate Math

The bill now moves to the Senate, where its prospects are bleak. Passage requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and Republicans hold just 53 seats. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has already said she will vote against it, arguing that imposing new federal requirements on states deep into their election preparations would undermine rather than strengthen public trust in elections.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill "dead on arrival" and compared it to Jim Crow-era voter suppression laws. "What they're trying to do here is the same thing that was done in the South for decades to prevent people of color from voting," Schumer said.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has broken with his party on several issues in recent months, said publicly that he supports requiring photo ID to vote but drew a line at the SAVE Act itself. In a Feb. 12 interview, Fetterman said he "refuse[d] to call it Jim Crow 2.0" and pointed to Democratic-led states like Virginia and Wisconsin that already require voter identification. But he said he would not vote for the bill, citing provisions restricting mail-in voting as a "non-starter." He also noted the math makes the question largely academic: "Even if I loved it, and I vote for it, I'll be the only Democrat, and that doesn't matter, because we won't come anywhere close to hitting 60."

Some House Republicans have pushed to eliminate or weaken the filibuster to get the bill through, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune has resisted, warning it would set a precedent Democrats could exploit when they regain the majority. Thune told reporters Monday the SAVE Act could get a vote "in the not-too-distant future" but offered no firm timeline.

Legal and Constitutional Questions

Legal scholars have been direct about the limits of executive authority on this front. Nate Persily, a professor of law at Stanford, said the Constitution leaves no ambiguity. "It doesn't give unilateral regulatory authority for elections to the president," he said, adding that the only mechanism for overriding state election procedures is federal legislation — as Congress did with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Rick Hasen, who directs the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA School of Law, pointed to the January federal court ruling that permanently blocked Trump's earlier executive order on voting. Hasen said he expected any new order mandating voter ID would face the same legal fate.

Trump has already tested this territory. His March 2025 executive order sought to require proof of citizenship at voter registration, impose mail-in ballot deadlines, and make other changes to election administration. A federal judge struck it down, finding the president had no authority to impose such requirements without congressional action.

Despite those legal barriers, Trump has continued pressing the issue. He recently called on Republicans to "nationalize" elections and suggested the federal government should take over voting administration in as many as 15 jurisdictions. The FBI's seizure of ballots and voter records from Fulton County, Georgia — tied to Trump's repeated and unsubstantiated claims that he won the state in 2020 — has added to concerns among voting rights groups about federal overreach into state election systems.

The Broader Political Context

Trump's push on voter ID is unfolding against a backdrop of growing Republican anxiety about the midterms. Incumbent presidents' parties historically lose seats in Congress during midterm cycles, and polls suggest Republicans face a real threat of losing their narrow House majority in November. Trump has warned publicly that a Democratic takeover could lead to a third impeachment effort against him.

Polling on the underlying issue, however, cuts in Republicans' favor. A Pew Research Center survey found 83 percent of American adults support requiring government-issued photo ID to vote, including 95 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of Democrats. Trump urged Republicans Friday to make voter ID a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns.

Critics of the SAVE Act argue that support for the general concept of voter ID does not translate into support for the specific legislation. The Brennan Center for Justice found that more than 21 million Americans lack easy access to a passport or paper birth certificate — the types of documents the bill would require. Democratic leaders have argued the bill would disproportionately burden women who changed their names after marriage, elderly voters, low-income communities, and voters of color.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem campaigned for the SAVE Act during a press conference in Arizona on Friday, the same day Trump posted his executive order threat. Whether the Senate takes up the bill before the midterms, and what form any executive order might take, remain open questions with no clear answers from the White House.