section_path: Twenty-first century/Restrictions on voting
section_name: Restrictions on voting
paragraph_text: Restrictions on voting
  
  Despite extensive research over decades finding that voting fraud is extremely rare, many Republicans assert it is widespread and that actions must be taken to prevent it. Amid persistent false allegations that widespread fraud had led to Trump's 2020 election loss, in 2021 Republicans in multiple states began taking actions to gain control of state and county election apparatuses, limit ballot access and challenge votes. By June, Republicans had introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over elections officials. Republican lawmakers had stripped authority from secretaries of state, who oversee state elections. In Georgia, Republicans removed Democrats of color from local election boards. In Arkansas, they stripped election control from county authorities.
  
  Wisconsin Republicans, led by senator Ron Johnson, sought to dismantle the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, which the party had created five years earlier. In Michigan and other swing states, Republicans sought to create an "army" of poll workers and attorneys who could refer what they deemed questionable ballots to a network of friendly district attorneys to challenge. Through May 2022, Republican voters had nominated at least 108 candidates, in some 170 midterm races, who had repeated Trump's stolen election claims; at least 149 had campaigned on tightening voting procedures, despite the lack of evidence of widespread fraud. Dozens of these nominees sought offices to oversee the administration and certification of elections.
  
  The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act was first introduced into Congress by the Republicans in July 2024. Among its provisions would require that a voter demonstrate proof of American citizenship prior to federal elections, based on claims of non-citizen voting fraud in recent elections which have been disproven. Such identification can be through a US passport, a Real ID state driver's license that indicates citizenship, or other federal identification. A major complaint on these requirements is that for people that have moved across state lines, or for married persons that have changed their last names on marriage, obtaining such documentation based on other forms of identification like birth certificates can be difficult to complete, and sets up the ability to deny voting to individuals that have these difficulties to demonstrate citizen, particularly married women. While the first SAVE act expired with the end of the 2024 congressional session, it was reintroduced in 2025, and passed the House of Representives along party lines in April 2025; due to the limited majority that the Republicans hold in the Senate, the bill is not expected to pass there unless the Senate votes to eliminate the filibuster rule.