1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

I urge you to oppose the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act introduced by Rep. Chip Roy. While I agree that only eligible citizens should vote in federal elections, this legislation creates significant barriers for legitimate voters while addressing a problem that evidence shows does not exist. Noncitizen voting is already illegal under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, and data demonstrates it is extraordinarily rare. Utah's comprehensive review of over 2 million registered voters from April 2025 through January 2026 found only one confirmed instance of noncitizen registration and zero instances of noncitizen voting. The USCIS Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program shows just 0.04% of voter verification cases return as noncitizens, and Travis County, Texas reported that 25% of voters flagged by USCIS as potential noncitizens had already provided proof of citizenship when registering. The SAVE Act would disenfranchise far more eligible citizens than any noncitizens it might prevent from registering. Nine percent of all eligible voters lack easy access to documentary proof of citizenship, 52% of registered voters lack an unexpired passport with their current legal name, and 11% lack access to their birth certificate. Kansas provides a stark warning: after implementing documentary proof requirements, roughly 31,000 eligible citizens were prevented from registering, representing 12% of all applicants, while noncitizen registration had been only 0.002% of registered voters. The legislation also creates serious administrative problems. It becomes effective immediately upon enactment with no adjustment time for states, provides no implementation funding, yet establishes criminal penalties for election officials who register applicants without documentary proof even if the applicant is actually a citizen. It authorizes private lawsuits against officials under the same circumstances, which will encourage overly cautious behavior and further strain an election workforce already facing high turnover. Better verification methods exist that place responsibility on government databases rather than voters. I ask you to oppose the SAVE Act and support back-end verification approaches that protect election integrity without disenfranchising eligible citizens.