SAVE AMERICA ACT

SAVE AMERICA ACT

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 49 (Wednesday, March 18, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 18, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S1307-S1309] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SAVE AMERICA ACT Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to join many of my colleagues in standing up to protect American citizens' constitutional right to vote and fighting back against this administration's most recent attack on access to the ballot box. What are Americans really talking about right now? What do they really wish we were focused on in this great Chamber? Not the SAVE America Act. They would like us to focus on the ``Save America Money Act,'' because Americans see rising costs because of these across-the- board tariffs that I oppose, the gas prices that are surging, the healthcare costs doubling and tripling, because the White House and congressional Republicans decided not to extend the tax credits for their health plans--doubling and tripling of people's premiums, particularly in rural areas where they tend to rely on these plans more. So instead of simply making their case to the voters of this country, the American citizens, or maybe taking a look at their policies in case there is a way to work with us on the Affordable Care Act tax credits and compromise, or trying to add more energy to the grid instead of taking wind projects off the grid, they are trying to pass legislation to pick the voters with this bill. And it is by President Trump's own admission. This is not me saying it. He is the one--an exact quote that says of this bill: It will guarantee the midterms. As my friend and colleague Senator Raphael Warnock has said: Some people don't want some people to vote. That is why so many of us have come to the floor this week. We don't think eligible American citizens should be kicked off voter rolls or there should be burdensome hurdles for people to register to vote. Nothing is more fundamental to our democracy than our fair and free elections and rights of Americans to make their voices heard at the ballot box, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, whatever political beliefs they have. Throughout even the most difficult times, Americans have stood in ballot lines because a right to vote is what secures our freedoms. But right now, we are seeing unprecedented attacks on the foundation of democracy from this administration, and we all know it is not for the first time. There was the insurrection on January 6, right here, right in this Chamber. Someone came up, sat there on the Presiding Officer's desk, a violent mob, for the purpose of trying to stop us from certifying the results of the 2020 election. I know Senator Blunt and I were the only two Senators left at 4 in the morning with Vice President Pence, who made that walk with the last of those ballots, by officers whose faces were scratched, over broken glass, over to the House. That happened, but democracy in the end prevailed. And now, the President has threatened to nationalize election administration, replacing the judgment and experience of State and local officials, going so far as to say: Republicans should say, `We want to take over.' We should take over the voting . . . Exact quote. He also issued an unlawful Executive order to overhaul our Nation's elections and assert Federal control over State-run elections. Minnesota and 18 other States sued and have won a preliminary injunction because as the judge wrote: The Constitution does not grant a President any specific powers over elections. Undeterred, the President continues to float illegally ending mail-in voting nationwide, which is incredibly popular in red States and blue, incredibly popular in Utah and Colorado, in Minnesota; and he continues to double down on his repeatedly disproven conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The FBI seized election ballots from 2020 in Georgia, as well as election records in Arizona. There are also concerns that Federal agents could be deployed to polling locations. When asked at her oversight hearing about ICE being sent to polling locations, Secretary Noem did not rule out the Agency deploying officers in the future. And the Justice Department, under this administration, has turned away from its mission of enforcing the Voting Rights Act and has experienced a mass exodus of attorneys. It has also illegally pressured States to provide voters' sensitive and personally identifiable information to the administration which, by the way, is highly relevant to the bill before us now. In fact, Attorney General Bondi on the same day that Alex Pretti was killed by Federal agents--shot in the back--that same day, that same few hours, she sent a letter to Minnesota saying the administration would remove ICE from our streets if Minnesota violated the privacy of its citizens by turning over their personal voter data. So she said: OK, we will get ICE out of there if you guys will give us your data on your voters. That happened. In a court hearing, a Federal judge in Minnesota asked the Justice Department: Is the Executive trying to achieve through force what it cannot achieve through the courts? That is a pretty good question when you read that letter, but it is not just Minnesota that is standing up against the Justice Department's pressure. State election officials in 24 States, including Republican officials in Georgia, Republican secretary of state of New Hampshire, Republican officials in Kentucky, and Republican officials in West Virginia have refused to comply with the voter file demands. And four Federal judges, including judges appointed by President Trump, have ruled that the Justice Department's effort to obtain this data is illegal. Now, President Trump and congressional Republicans are trying to force through this bill. That would result mandatory in voters' data being turned over to the Federal Government and would empower the Department of Homeland Security to kick American citizens off State voter rolls. Under this bill, the Department of Homeland Security would run voters' personal data through a tool, a DOGE tool, and tell States who they have to purge from their voter rolls. So, remember, 24 States, including several Republican officials, including in conservative States like West Virginia, have said no to this. They don't want to give over those data rolls, of the voter data rolls. But now, this would mandate it that it go to the Department of Homeland Security, the same Agency that gave us ICE in Minnesota. This will result in these American citizens--when you go back and you are supposed to run this through this tool, this system, these algorithms, and we are supposed to believe that that will all work great, given what we have seen from Homeland Security in the last few months. No way. At least 24 States, as I noted, already have agreements to share voter data with DHS, and already the Department's tool has misidentified hundreds of American citizens as ineligible to vote. So I already have a proof point. The SAVE America Act isn't about what they are saying it is. In the 64 election lawsuits brought by President Trump and his allies contesting the 2020 election, no judge, including judges appointed by President Trump himself, found evidence of widespread fraud. [[Page S1308]] His own Attorney General said there wasn't evidence of widespread fraud. And according to a bipartisan policy center analysis of the Heritage Foundation's database of noncitizen voting across 25 years, there were only 77 cases out of nearly 2 billion votes cast of noncitizens voting. In each of these cases, they faced an investigation. I know when I was the county attorney in my State, way before any of this technology existed, we would get cases referred to us from the Minnesota secretary of state, and I actually put an investigator on this and looked at every single case to make sure there wasn't a problem. And the vast majority of them, with the exception of one where the school board line went through someone's house and they voted twice, which was illegal, and another one where a guy decided he was going to vote twice. This is in our biggest county. They were all fathers and sons with the same names. We looked diligently at every single case. We had a Republican secretary of state. She sent them over. We looked at them. We explained it back. That is what I did as county attorney. So I had some experience with this. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said: [We need to make sure that] we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country . . . And President Trump himself said that, with this bill, Republicans will ``never lose a race'' in 50 years. So you wonder why we are concerned about this. I believe in free and fair elections. I like the fact that my State has the highest voter turnout. I like the fact, like a number of States, including some red States, we have same day registration. I like the fact that we make it easier for people to vote by mail. Our State actually was not nearly on the bandwagon with vote-by-mail like Utah was, the Presiding Officer's State, or Colorado. Some States recently changed the rules to be consistent with some of these other States to make it easier for people to vote-by-mail. But this idea that we are suddenly going to turn over all of our voter data to what is now Kristi Noem's Department, despite her soon departure, is just--I don't think most people in America would think this is a good idea. The Department of Homeland Security has already violated Federal law by repurposing its SAVE program to verify voters and only issuing their prior notice after being sued by the League of Women Voters. And the Department of Justice even admitted in court--and this was bad--that Elon Musk's DOGE employees shared Americans' personal Social Security data with partisan organizations that worked to purge vote