The SAVE Act passed the House in April, 2025. As it awaits consideration in Congress, we spoke with Jason Carter from the Carter Center. Yes, like that Carter. Jason is asking why Congress is working on a vanishingly rare problem: noncitizen voting. The SAVE Act, if it becomes law, will require additional proof of citizenship for all Americans seeking to register -- or reregister -- to vote. The goal? To stop all noncitizens from voting -- which rarely happens.
Transcript
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:00] This is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:02] I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:03] Nick, you know what i've been singing to myself a lot lately?
Nick Capodice: [00:00:11] Oh, [00:00:10] well, uh, it could be any number of things. Hannah. Uh, is it Stephen Sondheim?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:17] It's not always Sondheim, Nick.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:19] It usually [00:00:20] is.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:20] What I have been singing a lot lately is I have confidence from The Sound of Music, and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to sing it here for copyright reasons. However, [00:00:30] the line that keeps coming to me is, uh, all I trust I leave my heart to all I trust becomes my own. I have confidence [00:00:40] in confidence alone.
Nick Capodice: [00:00:43] I wish you could sing it. I really do, uh, that Julie Andrews is a treasure.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:48] She is. Uh. But you know what [00:00:50] I think it is for me, Nick, we know that a lot of people say they have lost trust. They have lost confidence in the whole lot [00:01:00] of it. The whole system, all the people, be they sitting on Capitol Hill or down the street from us. And to that I say phooey. Where did you get that one from?
Nick Capodice: [00:01:09] Experience? [00:01:10]
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:10] Yeah. Well, sure. Um. But, Nick, what if that experience isn't what we think it is? What if that mistrust is misplaced? [00:01:20] What if. Nick, we had confidence that spring will come again? Maybe it's even spring right now.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:28] It's literally spring right now, Hannah. [00:01:30]
Maria: [00:01:30] Oh, let's see if I can make it easier.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:37] Here's Jason Carter.
Jason Carter: [00:01:38] In the United States [00:01:40] and everywhere around the world. Democracy depends on trust.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:42] Jason Carter, as in Carter. Carter.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:46] As in Carter. Carter, the grandson of the late President [00:01:50] Jimmy Carter. Jason is a lawyer and the chair of the Carter Center.
Jason Carter: [00:01:54] Since it was founded, the Carter Center has done work in over 80 countries. And that work has been both [00:02:00] in terms of peace building, a lot of which is democracy and human rights, rule of law, conflict resolution, and also in health, which is a disease eradication [00:02:10] health system, strengthening, doing the work on the ground in these places that we believe builds up people, alleviates human suffering and and draws [00:02:20] people closer together. We've also observed over 120 elections in more than 40 countries.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:27] Okay. The disease eradication thing is pretty straightforward. [00:02:30] I mean, it's a gargantuan goal, but I understand it. I'm not sure what observing elections means.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:37] Right. Okay. So observing elections, [00:02:40] people from the Carter Center get invited to watch the election process in other countries. The idea is they will check out voter registration, election law, the [00:02:50] election itself. And then they offer feedback for nations that are trying to do democracy. Right. Why? Because the Carter Center can be neutral about it. [00:03:00] Basically, they are not invested in the results, but in the process. And because they come from the United States, a successful democracy. [00:03:10]
Nick Capodice: [00:03:10] Uh.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:11] Way ahead of you.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:12] All right.
Jason Carter: [00:03:13] We realized that as we go out and talk about democracy as an American organization, um, we have to do [00:03:20] that with real credibility. And we were looking around both at the way the world was looking at American democracy, the way that American democracy was projecting itself [00:03:30] out into the world. And we realized that both we needed to get involved. For the Carter Center's own credibility.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:38] The Carter Center spends a lot of its time observing [00:03:40] other countries elections, not observing the United States elections until now. We started with trust, right? [00:03:50] That is what I am thinking about right now. So is Jason.
Jason Carter: [00:03:54] There's a variety of things that have happened over the course of the last several decades in the United States [00:04:00] that have eroded that trust in the election system. And democracy depends on trust.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:08] Right. I mean, when you're living in a country [00:04:10] where there is a nationwide call to stop the steal, a belief that elections are fraudulent, full of bad actors and lawbreakers, not actually [00:04:20] the democratic process they purport to be.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:23] And we are living in that country.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:24] We are. This is a big part of the reason people say democracy is in trouble because [00:04:30] people don't believe in it.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:32] Yeah. Here's how I'm looking at it. America is never Neverland. Democracy is fairies. And every time you say you don't [00:04:40] believe in fairies, a fairy dies. Where did we get the idea that fairies don't exist? A whole bunch of Captain Hook's who grew up stopped believing in [00:04:50] the thing that makes this world beautiful, and want to convince all of us to stop believing in it, to start clapping.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:56] I do believe in fairies. I do, I do.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:59] Belief [00:05:00] shapes reality, right? So the Carter Center is looking for ways to bring trust and confidence back. I'm mixing metaphors, a mix of movies, but I don't [00:05:10] care.
Jason Carter: [00:05:10] And so we are looking at a variety of different ways to to both reach out to people that are alienated from the system and also use the leaders that exist now to help increase [00:05:20] that trust. And that's our focus. What is it that we have? What are the principles for trusted elections, and what are the ways that we can get those principles out into the United States to to make sure [00:05:30] that we're doing things right, you have to do things correctly, and you also have to be seen to do them correctly. Right? The fact that we have a strong election system, the fact that [00:05:40] we have a very decentralized election system in the United States, essentially run by the 50 states and some territories, you know, the fact that in Georgia, for example, [00:05:50] where I live, you know, we have a county election boards, it makes it very difficult, very difficult to steal an election, for election, for example, it makes it almost impossible [00:06:00] to have any significant fraud that can affect the outcome of an election, right? That can thwart the will of the people.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:07] One useful tactic in making sure that [00:06:10] we do not believe in democracy can actually be pretending that what you are doing is protecting democracy. Like Captain Hook double crossing Peter Pan, for [00:06:20] example, you write a law that you say will make our elections safer.
Archival: [00:06:25] I rise in support of the Save act. The [00:06:30] American people are done messing around with a weak kneed system.
Archival: [00:06:34] The Save act would cripple American election.
Archival: [00:06:36] The Save act is required if we're going to have election integrity. [00:06:40]
Archival: [00:06:40] I rise today in strong opposition.
Archival: [00:06:42] I rise in support of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.
Jason Carter: [00:06:46] You know, an election law like the Save act will come in. [00:06:50] And the purpose of it is from the beginning is based on something that that is solving a problem that doesn't really exist.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:58] All right, the save act. I have heard [00:07:00] about this one. This is the thing that passed the house in April.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:03] Yeah. And it's now waiting on Senate consideration. We're recording this episode in May 2025, and it was about a month [00:07:10] ago that the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.
Jason Carter: [00:07:16] The Save act, in essence, is something that purports [00:07:20] to address, uh, different types of election fraud, most particularly fraud by voting by non-citizens.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:27] I'll tell you what the Save act will require of voters in [00:07:30] just a moment. We will also have a whole episode on President Trump's executive order about elections. But first, a reminder that noncitizen voting in American elections is already illegal. [00:07:40] It is also incredibly rare. I decided to look at the data published by one of the think tanks that has actively lobbied for the Save act, the Heritage Foundation.
Donald Trump: [00:07:49] Thank [00:07:50] you to the Heritage Foundation.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:52] They say their database contains many confirmed instances of noncitizen non-citizen voters. It contains 79 [00:08:00] people who have done so, 79 people over four decades, in everything from school board elections to presidential. And [00:08:10] I know this because I read every report.
Jason Carter: [00:08:14] Those people get prosecuted. There it is. It is. You know, they're punished with both crimes and imprisonment. And [00:08:20] so it is we have a very robust system of laws that address what happens when someone is caught with voter fraud. And we also have an enormous [00:08:30] number of people who are out there looking to find this type of voter fraud, right? I mean, folks are out in a variety of contexts. You [00:08:40] know, we have very, very good surveillance.
Nick Capodice: [00:08:42] We should also point out here that if you're caught voting as a non-citizen, you could face deportation.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:48] Yes. So I was trying to [00:08:50] think of something comparable to this. Like, what's another federal crime that is nonviolent? But if it's committed by many people, can have a serious impact on the democratic system. [00:09:00] So a thought about the tens of billions of dollars we miss out on every year because of tax evasion.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:06] How many people commit that crime?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:08] That data was a little more elusive. [00:09:10] But the IRS estimates about a million people.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:13] A million per year.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:16] Per year. So we have laws about taxes [00:09:20] and tax evasion. We prosecute people for tax evasion. Not nearly as many, relatively speaking, as we do for noncitizen voting. Collecting taxes is absolutely essential [00:09:30] to a functioning government that sustains a functioning democracy. And look, I'm not naive. The current Congress has expressed more interest in weakening the Internal Revenue Service, [00:09:40] the agency that monitors tax evasion, than it has in strengthening it. They've rescinded tens of billions of dollars in funding. There's even a proposed bill to abolish it, [00:09:50] along with income taxes.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:52] Yeah. The current Congress doesn't seem to be such a big fan of taxes.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:56] But my point is, there is a federal crime that is way [00:10:00] more widespread than noncitizen voting, and it's the kind that could be addressed in a law. But a law like that one that beefs up the IRS, for example, is incredibly [00:10:10] difficult to pass. So how and why did the House manage to pass a law about something that barely happens?
Jason Carter: [00:10:19] One of the [00:10:20] keys that we look at when we're talking about, does this election law help or hurt? Does this election law build trust or or undermine trust? You know, an election law [00:10:30] like the Save act will come in. And the purpose of it is from the beginning is based on something that that is solving a problem that doesn't really exist. [00:10:40] So you have very little of this type of voter fraud at all and is currently being addressed in significant ways. And so when you pass [00:10:50] a law that purports to fix a problem that doesn't exist, it Increases the, uh, sort of the idea that this, that this is necessary, [00:11:00] um, when it's not. And so that's a, that's a significant problem right off the bat.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:04] All right. But what exactly, Hannah, does the save act say? Like, if it becomes a law, what's [00:11:10] going to happen?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:11] I'll get into all that after a quick break.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:15] But before that break, a loving reminder that we wrote a book. We did, [00:11:20] uh, it's called A User's Guide to Democracy How America Works. And it is your friend. It is your companion. It is your warm and reassuring hug when you need it. It is [00:11:30] a reminder of how far you've come and how powerful you are. And if that sounds nice, you can get it wherever books are sold.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:57] We're [00:11:50] back. We're talking with Jason Carter from the Carter Center, [00:12:00] a nonprofit that does a lot of work in the world, including globally, supporting democratic elections and human rights. And before the break, Nick, you asked me what the Save act says [00:12:10] and what will happen if it becomes law. So if it does, you will need a valid US passport or birth certificate in order to register or reregister to [00:12:20] vote. And there are a bunch of other accepted documents for certain people, certain classifications, but for most voters, we're talking passport or birth [00:12:30] certificate. Some states already do this, by the way.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:33] Yeah. New Hampshire does this.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:34] Yep. The state where Nick votes rolled this out this year, 2025. Now, here's [00:12:40] one big concern that opponents of this bill keep bringing up.
Jason Carter: [00:12:43] If you are a married woman whose name no longer matches the name on her birth certificate, um, then you may [00:12:50] have a problem getting registered to vote.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:52] Now, I've heard about this, Hannah. If you took your spouse's name when you got married, then your legal name doesn't match what's on your birth certificate. [00:13:00]
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:00] Yeah. In that case, you would need a passport or one of the many other documents listed for people who are, for example, tribal citizens or military personnel. Now, Save [00:13:10] act supporters say don't worry about it, because the Save act requires states to decide what they are going to do about that. Like what kinds of documents they will ask [00:13:20] for for extra proof of citizenship.
Nick Capodice: [00:13:22] What kinds of documents will they ask for?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:25] That is up to the states. A marriage certificate, maybe, if you can find it. But [00:13:30] you brought up New Hampshire, Nick, where married women did get turned away this year, sometimes multiple times because of this issue. Some of them came back, some of them didn't. There [00:13:40] was one story of a woman who had been married three times, but still had her first husband's last name. Her first marriage certificate had been lost to history for a while [00:13:50] at that point. And you can always order a copy for a fee, but that doesn't help when it comes to same day registration.
Nick Capodice: [00:13:57] Okay, so if this act passes [00:14:00] and becomes a nationwide thing, there are going to be people who need to do some serious administrative work.
Jason Carter: [00:14:07] There's some estimates that it would be 20 something million [00:14:10] Americans who would have a hard time finding the documents that they need in order to register or reregister to vote under this act.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:18] So you heard Jason ask some questions [00:14:20] about this proposed law. Number one, does it help or hurt? What do you think about that one, Nick?
Nick Capodice: [00:14:28] Oh, well, uh, it [00:14:30] was proposed to prevent a very rare form of voter fraud that we already have laws for. And because laws tend not to be 100% effective, I suppose [00:14:40] the Save act could get the numbers down a little more.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:44] The numbers I have seen are between 0.0001 [00:14:50] and 0.0008% of votes are from non-citizens.
Nick Capodice: [00:14:56] Maybe they're just going after another zero after that decimal, I guess.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:14:59] Okay, [00:15:00] so that is the help. Here's where Jason sees a hurt.
Jason Carter: [00:15:04] When you look at a change in election laws, if there are winners and losers, you have to assess who [00:15:10] it is that's benefiting from this law. Right. And when you say you have to have a passport in order to vote, the kinds of people who have passports are the ones that take foreign trips, right? And so [00:15:20] you're talking about a group of people that are going to be per se, wealthier. You're going to the kind of folks who have all of the documents that they need for a variety of other things. [00:15:30] You know, the folks that are least likely to have these documents are folks that are that are poorer, frankly, and don't have that that kind of access to things like a birth certificate, [00:15:40] they have to go. And a lot of states you have to pay to to get one right or to get a copy of it. And so you're talking about increasing burdens on people's right to vote that make [00:15:50] it more difficult for people to vote. If you create an undue burden on the right to vote. Then there's going to be the people who feel that burden and the folks who are least likely to handle that. Um, [00:16:00] you know, tend to be less able to to, you know, you know, they're the ones who don't have the kind of resources that others have. And so when you're burdening the right to vote, you're basically burdening the right to vote of poor people [00:16:10] more than you are of rich people.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:14] Now, the other question Jason asked is, does this law build trust or undermine trust? [00:16:20] Now, I can tell you that proponents of the Save act say it will restore trust in American elections. Here's what Jason says.
Jason Carter: [00:16:28] It's an act that does a variety of things, but [00:16:30] it is also one that fundamentally, I think, sort of continues this idea that undermines the trust in the system rather than increases the trust.
Nick Capodice: [00:16:39] All right. I [00:16:40] want to go a little deeper on this one. How would this change make us trust the system less?
Jason Carter: [00:16:46] Number one, you know, you're telling people that the federal government should have a [00:16:50] bigger role. Uh, and that, I think, undermines some of the trust that people have in the system today. I think, number two, it because there is that [00:17:00] is solving, quote, purporting to solve a problem that doesn't really exist. You're perpetuating this idea that we have major, major problems in our election system when we don't. And I think that [00:17:10] continues to build this mistrust.
Nick Capodice: [00:17:12] So we do have this decentralized system in the United States today. The Constitution tells us that states are in charge [00:17:20] of the place and manner of elections, which is why some states have already passed what is essentially their own version of the Save act. But if the federal government [00:17:30] steps in and passes federal legislation, it's basically overriding states that chose not to.
Jason Carter: [00:17:37] By the way, this is not just a Republican versus Democratic issue. [00:17:40] The Democrats have made a variety of efforts to take over some election aspects from the states and give them to the federal government. And I think in general, when [00:17:50] we do that, we have to really assess everything through that lens of is this increasing trust or is this reducing trust in the system? And I think that people generally tend [00:18:00] to to like their local election officials more than they like the federal government. They tend to have more trust. And so I think when you move election rules and regulations away [00:18:10] from the trusted locals and the trusted states to the federal government, it's a it's a downgrade.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:18:15] The federal government has, by the way, in the past, done some sweeping intervention when it comes [00:18:20] to elections and voters in modern history. The 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed to stop race based disenfranchisement in states across the country. Prior [00:18:30] to that, there were amendments to the constitution to allow women and people of color to vote and changes to laws that prevented tribal people, or even, in one case, pretty much any nonwhite [00:18:40] person at all from voting. But these changes were about expanding rights. Jason says the Save act is not that.
Jason Carter: [00:18:49] Why [00:18:50] do you want to make it harder for people to vote. And the answer, I think in this instance cannot be that there is some fraud issue. It has to be there's some Partizan power grab. [00:19:00] And so there are good reasons, and there are bad reasons for the federal government to get involved. But what our job is as as observers of the process, is to figure out how we can bring people [00:19:10] together to do things to solve the real problems in our system without making this partizan enough that it that it again, continues to undermine that valuable trust. [00:19:20]
Nick Capodice: [00:19:20] So, Hannah, I'm thinking about the way you started this conversation, that you have confidence. You have faith. But Jason started this conversation by telling us [00:19:30] that several decades worth of stuff has eroded trust. And I know that studies and polls are showing a frightening lack of trust [00:19:40] in the system and in other people in general. And without that confidence, democracy cannot exist. So where'd [00:19:50] you get it? Huh? Hannah, what makes you so special?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:53] Okay. When I don't think that I am all that special, I think that there are a lot of others like me. But [00:20:00] to answer your question, research and second opinions.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:03] Half of our listeners just tuned out.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:06] All right, let me put it another way. A [00:20:10] mechanic walks by my car and is like, whoa, big problem. Your car is supposed to have five wheels. This is an emergency. You need to pay me to fix [00:20:20] it right now. Now, the first thing I'm going to think to myself is. Wait a minute. That has never been a problem before. My car is running great. The second thing I'm going to [00:20:30] do is check my manual, which will tell me four wheels are the correct number of wheels. The third thing I'm going to do is talk to my regular mechanic, who I trust, and ask him [00:20:40] if this is really a problem. He will tell me no. I will go on with my life.
Nick Capodice: [00:20:44] So are you saying that everyone who lost their trust got scammed by the government version of the old five [00:20:50] wheel myth?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:51] What I'm trying to get at is that it's pretty freaky when someone who is supposed to know things tells you something is broken when you thought it was okay. [00:21:00] Now, my car might not be the smoothest ride in town. It could probably be better. It requires maintenance. I have to file paperwork, but it does what [00:21:10] it is supposed to do. Scammers nick cause extra work for all of us. They make us doubt. They make us check the manual. They make [00:21:20] us double check with people we do trust. This is an extremely annoying thing, not to mention extremely time consuming.
Nick Capodice: [00:21:28] Yeah, but if you didn't do it, [00:21:30] you'd get hit with a $1,000 wheel mod bill that you didn't need.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:33] Or I would always wonder. I would start to doubt. I'd worry. There were other things wrong with my car. I'd think the car designers [00:21:40] were maybe wrong all along. Maybe they're the ones scamming me. Every small inconvenience, every oil change would start to feel like proof that this car is a lemon. [00:21:50] I would spiral. It is hard to get yourself out of a spiral.
Jason Carter: [00:21:56] One of the things that we have learned across the world in many, many dozens [00:22:00] and dozens of countries, more than 100 elections, is that once people lose faith in the system, it's hard to build it back, because it's always easy to point out there was [00:22:10] this problem or there was that problem. And and I think the key is that students and everyone else need to get the facts about what the law is, right? It is dramatically [00:22:20] illegal to commit voter fraud. It is dramatically illegal to vote as a non-citizen. And we enforce those laws really well in this country. And so if we are [00:22:30] doing that, and if people hear an anecdote or a story about a problem here or a problem there, make sure that people are putting it into context and saying, you know, maybe you [00:22:40] don't like the outcome of this election, but really it's not because the system is broken, it's because, you know, we've we've done a variety of things to to lose an election.
Nick Capodice: [00:22:50] Wow. [00:22:50] Yeah. You know, we don't say that enough, Hannah. People lose elections, right? For a lot of reasons. They just do.
Jason Carter: [00:22:59] Lots [00:23:00] of people have lost elections in a variety of contexts. And the key to me is just make sure that people understand the facts. Make sure that people understand what we have and what safeguards [00:23:10] are in place, and then not be sore losers. I have won elections and I have lost elections, right? I've served in the state legislature in [00:23:20] my state. I ran for governor ten years ago, 11 years ago now, and I lost. Now I just feel like we all have [00:23:30] to understand that something has happened in our country where there's folks who can't talk to their parents because of Partizan politics. There's folks who have uncles [00:23:40] that they used to love that they can't talk to anymore because of Partizan politics. And we have to figure out a way to break that down. We have to figure out a way to [00:23:50] have people be opponents without being enemies. And if we can't do that in our own families, then how are we going to ask people to do that more broadly? And I just think the polarization [00:24:00] has become alienation in some ways. And so for me, the great thing about being out of Partizan politics in some ways and I still support folks, [00:24:10] I still campaign for folks, I still do the things that I want to do within my political party, but I no longer say that the other side is like an enemy, just per se. [00:24:20] We can't do that. We have to find ways to come back together and to say, hey, I listen to you. I want you to listen to me. Let's have this conversation. And I frankly think [00:24:30] that we're getting back to that, that that pendulum is swinging a little bit, even if it doesn't seem like it out there in the in the realm of the hecklers.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:24:48] We [00:24:40] do not have to let [00:24:50] myths and scams drive us apart. We do not have to be miserable. We do not have to stew in paranoia. We do [00:25:00] have to ask who is making us miserable and why. Who is telling us that people with different opinions are our enemies? [00:25:10] Who is telling us that gentle breeze is a hurricane? Confidence is hard. Anyone who has been a teenager can [00:25:20] tell you that. And I am working really, really hard at it. If democracy is stressed is confidence, then [00:25:30] I have confidence in confidence alone. This is my system. This is your system. And it is not the system that is broken. [00:25:40] I can tell you that much. So I am giving my whole heart to it.
Nick Capodice: [00:25:44] When you wake up, wake up. It's healthy.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:01] That [00:26:00] does it for this episode. It was made by me. Hannah McCarthy with Nick Capodice Marina Henke is our producer. Christina Phillips is our senior producer. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive [00:26:10] producer. Music in this episode comes from Epidemic Sound. The Carter Center is doing a lot of work on democracy and trust building. We did not have time to get to it all in this episode, but if you want to learn more, [00:26:20] which is totally up to you, you can check out their website Cartercenter.org. Ask us questions if you've got them at our website civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is [00:26:30] a production of NPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.