Zombie in the House

Photo credit: Night of the Living Dead (1968), film by George Romero. Public domain.

Contrary to what you might think, the zombies above are not members of the House of Representatives, but from George Romero’s film, Night of the Living Dead. But make no mistake. There are zombies in the House. Need proof of the undead? Look no further than Donald Trump’s SAVE Act, first given life there in April 2025, stopped in its tracks in the Senate, and then given new life in the House again in February of this year. This zombie hasn’t been easy to kill. Whacking it on the head with a resounding no vote hasn’t been possible, and even threatening it with the filibuster flamethrower may not work. Zombies, if you’re lucky, just go away if you stay quiet. That seems to be the Senate’s current plan. But that’s not a sure bet.

The SAVE Act, (see, e.g., “Stop the SAVE Act and Stop the Steal,”) is an acronym for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which like so many other acronyms that Congress comes up with is the opposite of what it really means. The SAVE Act is no exception. It doesn’t save anything. It’s just one more way to keep people from voting. Two years ago the Academy Award for Most Creative Obstacles to Voting went to the State of Georgia when it reduced the number of polling places for Black people, lengthened their lines, and made it illegal to hand out food or water to anyone waiting to vote, a crime punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Among other Georgians, the law pertained to the 850,000 voters of Fulton County, a modest target compared to the SAVE Act’s, which takes aim at as many as 21 million voters. In the minds of Republican strategists, the higher the barriers to vote, the better.

The Act began as a gleam in the eye of Republican consultant, Cleta Mitchell, an election denier who had previously aided Donald Trump in trying to overturn the 2020 election. It was co-sponsored by 53 House Republicans on January 3, 2025 at the start of Trump’s second term and passed 220-208 on April 10. The zombie was stopped in the Senate by the gentlest weapon of all, silence, when the Senate Majority leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who knows a loser when he sees it, declined to push it along. But Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) gave the zombie new life when they reintroduced it on January 30, 2026. It passed a second time in the House on February 11 this year, this time with a vote of 218-213. The SAVE Act rose from the dead.

SAVE is Donald Trump’s favorite zombie. Despite claims to the contrary, it’s not really intended to stop illegal immigrants from voting. That’s a lie which has been debunked ad nauseam. “The evidence is that the number of noncitizens illegally voting in federal elections is extremely low, not high enough to have changed the party outcome of any federal election in recent years,” Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the conservative Cato Institute said. “Audits and investigations in states like Ohio, Nevada, and North Carolina have found the numbers to be tiny in relation to votes cast. … The consistent experience has been that very few persons in this category mistakenly or deliberately vote.” No matter. Preventing illegal voting is not the goal of SAVE, but voter suppression. Fewer voters in the midterms, especially those of color, likely favor Republicans which in turn would prevent the House from falling to the Democrats and shield Trump from facing yet another impeachment. For what, you may ask? Given he has likely the longest list of high crimes and misdemeanors of any president in history, take your pick.

SAVE requires every voter to show a photo ID at the polling place. Not bad, right? 80% of Americans support them. Photo IDs are already required in 36 states. OK. But wait. That’s like hearing the music of the folksingers in Sinners before they turn into vampires. SAVE is nice enough, and then it’s not. It requires proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport. Can more Republicans lay their hands on those than Democrats? That’s the Republicans’ theory. Even if a woman can produce a birth certificate, that may not help if she changed her name when she married. There are 69 million American name changers. Passport? 140 million of us don’t have one. Live far from where you have to register? Tough luck. To register to vote, country folk would have to travel in person an average of 4.5 hours. The longest driving time would be 8 hours, from Colorado City AZ to the Mohave Co. election office.

Map credit: Center for American Progress. Fair use.

You can imagine the chaos that SAVE would create as state governments and citizens scrambled to establish paper trails to vote.

Even if SAVE doesn’t pass (the Senate so far lacks the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster which would kill it), it repeats the big lie that our elections are “rigged” and that your vote won’t count. When people stay home on election day, little numbers can add up to big wins. Texas senatorial candidate Ken Paxton, despite being charged with felonies, won his primary election with a mere 4.8% of registered voters.

Facing defeat in the Senate, as of this writing House Republicans have revived SAVE yet again, this time by attaching it to a pending vote on the National Defense Authorization Act. This will force lawmakers to choose between voting for SAVE and shutting down the defense appropriation. As recently as last week Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) stopped House business until the SAVE America Act advances. Meanwhile Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who supports SAVE but knows how to count, pronounced SAVE dead, saying, “It’s quite simple. It’s a math problem. We simply don’t have the votes and the SAVE America Act will not be implemented in time for this election…People will have to deal with registrations. Does any rational person who’s ever had any experience with implementing election law really think that it’s possible to have all that in place in time for this election and not be disruptive? And incidentally, it’s an unfunded mandate that has zero dollars for implementation.”

Trump was not pleased to hear that. When a housing bill which has overwhelming bipartisan support came to his desk for signature, he held it hostage unless Congress passes the SAVE Act. We live in a country where 75% of households can’t afford the median price of a new home. The housing crisis is not on his radar. He can only think of the coming elections. Hence all his efforts to block the vote: his gerrymander war, his efforts to stop mail-in voting, and now his misuse of the FBI to relitigate the validity of the voter rolls of Georgia. Senator Mike Lee sponsored SAVE. Yet even in his home state of Utah, matching the state’s two million voters with driver’s license data found fewer than 52 people who appeared to be voting illegally, and among those were “older voters who registered before the state required a driver’s license or Social Security number.”

Trump’s efforts to suppress voting aren’t over. It is hard to imagine what he’ll do to avoid the trouble ahead. Will he declare a “national emergency” on election day, and deploy the National Guard or ICE thugs to try and scare off voters? Or dream up some “crisis” and try to cancel elections altogether?

We live in interesting times. In the meanwhile, register to vote, mail in your ballot if that’s how you vote, and in any case don’t let yourself become paralyzed by fear or despair. Take heart. Vote, and reach out to others who may need help to do the same. If there’s one lesson the last 250 years has taught us, democracy is not a spectator sport.