Maria Cantwell

Sen. Maria Cantwell and top Washington elections officials warned Thursday a strict voter identification bill moving through Congress could sow chaos before the midterm elections and potentially prevent millions from voting.

The SAVE America Act, passed by the House of Representatives on a near party-line vote last week, would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote or to cast ballots, such as a valid passport or birth certificate.

The proposal has been pushed through by Republicans amid President Donald Trump’s threats to nationalize elections and ban mail voting, based on false and unproven claims about widespread voter fraud and voting by noncitizens.

The bill reportedly faces slim odds of passing in the Senate, where even some Republicans have voiced concerns. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised a vote, but he has said the bill doesn’t have the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

At a news conference in Seattle on Thursday, local elections administrators joined Cantwell in warning the proposal, if approved, would create major obstacles for voters who want to weigh in on the midterms this fall.

King County Elections Director Julie Wise said the bill’s restrictions would require anyone updating their voter registration to submit new paperwork and ID — leading to thousands waiting in line to prove they should be allowed to vote before Election Day.

I think that’s disenfranchisement when we make people stand in line for seven-plus hours. And that’s what we would realistically see here in King County,” Wise said.

The new restrictions could be particularly burdensome for women and others whose names have changed since birth, critics warn.

Cantwell cited estimates that 1.6 million women in Washington have taken their spouse’s last name and don’t have a birth certificates matching their legal name, and that millions of Americans don’t have documents showing proof of citizenship readily available.

“We have been a hallmark of free and fair elections for generations … but President Trump has been claiming massive voter fraud, particularly attacking vote-by-mail, and now he’s even talking about nationalizing elections. And to be clear, he doesn’t have the authority under the Constitution to do that,” Cantwell said.

Trump has long made false claims that he actually won the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. Trump and allies filed dozens of lawsuits over the election, all of which were rejected by courts.

Studies have shown cases of voter fraud are exceedingly rare. The conservative Heritage Foundation, for example, has tracked fraud cases over decades, finding just 15 instances of verified voter fraud in Washington state between 1982 and 2025.

Stuart Holmes, Washington state’s director of elections, said Thursday the SAVE America proposal puts new responsibilities on local and state elections administrators without providing any money to help carry them out.

He also warned of a related threat to mail voting in Washington: a U.S. Postal Service change in its postmarking rules that could cause some ballots to be disqualified.

Washington allows ballots to be counted as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. But the USPS change, announced in December, could delay postmarks, he said, so that anyone placing their ballot in a USPS mailbox on Election Day “is at risk of their ballot not being counted.”

Republicans have defended the SAVE Act as a common sense measure to restore trust in elections, pointing out that people have to provide valid photo identification for activities such as buying alcohol or boarding airplanes.

Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, who doesn’t share Trump’s claims about the 2020 election being stolen, has called Democrats’ objections to the voter-ID bill overblown and absurd.

He told The Spokesman-Review newspaper last week “we need to restore trust in elections and the perception of election integrity. That ought to start with voter identification.”

Baumgartner joined all Republicans last week in voting for the bill. All Democrats except one voted against it, with Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar siding with the GOP.

All of Washington’s congressional Democrats voted against the bill last week, including Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Washougal, who infuriated many in the party when she voted with Republicans last year on an earlier iteration of the proposal.

In a statement after voting no on the SAVE America Act, Gluesenkamp Perez mocked the bill as a nonsense exercise that would burden voters.

“Vote-by-mail is the gold standard in election security, and the SAVE America Act would undermine our state’s longstanding elections process by forcing Washingtonians to jump through nonsensical bureaucratic hoops in order to mail in their ballot.