Dems demand probe of Trump’s SAVE America Act website

Top Democrats are asking Congress’ investigative arm to probe a White House website urging voters to support the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America Act — calling it a blatant violation of federal laws barring officials from using taxpayer dollars for partisan politics.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif) and Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to the GAO Monday, shared exclusively with Democracy Docket, alleging that the website — whitehouse.gov/saveamerica — clearly violates the Anti-Lobbying Act, which forbids taxpayer dollars going to support lobbying campaigns.

“This webpage appears to be a prima facie violation of restrictions on the use of appropriations for explicit appeals to the public to contact Members of Congress to support pending legislation,” Morelle and Padilla wrote. “In this case, this apparently illegal appeal is in favor of a bill that is designed to stoke fears of voter fraud centered on a myth of pervasive voting by noncitizens, could disenfranchise millions of Americans, and would fundamentally alter election administration activities by nationalizing voter list maintenance and forcing the use of a flawed DHS database.”

Get updates straight to your inbox — for free

Join 350,000 readers who rely on our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest in voting, elections and democracy.

The page urges voters to “ACT NOW” to call their lawmakers, providing a series of talking points in favor of the legislation.

It also claims, incorrectly, that the bill would ban no-excuse mail voting. In fact, the White House reportedly tried to have such a ban included, but that provision was left out for fear of jeopardizing GOP support for the measure.

The website is just the latest example of President Donald Trump’s administration appearing to run afoul of ethics laws. Padilla has previously excoriated the White House for what he has alleged are repeated violations of the Hatch Act, which bans federal employees from using their offices for political campaigning.

The SAVE America Act would require voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) — like a U.S. passport or birth certificate — when they register to vote, and to show photo identification when they cast a ballot. It also would force states to provide the U.S. attorney general with access to their voter registration rolls, and mandate monthly purges of those rolls.

The bill narrowly passed the House earlier this month and now has 50 Republican cosponsors in the Senate. It still faces long odds of overcoming a Senate filibuster despite Trump’s demands that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) end the filibuster in order to enact it.

Trump recently said if Republicans do pass the bill, “for 50 years, we won’t lose a race.” He added that the bill would prevent noncitizens from voting, which he falsely blames his 2020 election loss on.

The idea that immigrants are coming to the United States to vote is a far-right conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly disproven. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote, and those that do so intentionally are easily caught, prosecuted, imprisoned for years, and then deported, all for the chance to cast a single ballot out of hundreds of thousands.

Consequently, noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare, as election officials and court findings across the country have persistently shown.

The SAVE America Act, however, would make it harder to vote for millions of Americans who have trouble getting their hands on a passport, birth certificate, marriage license, or naturalization papers, potentially disenfranchising many. State and local election officials also say implementing the bill ahead of the 2026 midterms would be chaotic and could disrupt voting across the country.