I'll admit, I have a number of philosophical and technical reservations about voter ID as it will likely be implemented following the passage of Question 7 this year.

Philosophically, as I wrote nearly a decade ago, I'm a firm believer that it's the government's job to be held accountable to those it governs and to continuously seek to secure our consent through the ballot. When the government adds administrative burdens to the electoral process — even when a substantial majority of Nevadans believe it should — it abuses its monopoly power as the sole supplier over the ballots each of us cast to guide its actions.

From a technical standpoint, meanwhile, I have strong reservations against encouraging people to write the last four digits of their Social Security number or driver's license number on publicly viewable pieces of paper, especially given how often those numbers are used as authentication tokens in other contexts.

Even so, seeing as more than 73 percent of the ballots cast in 2024 were in favor of the measure and proponents and opponents are treating its passage as a foregone conclusion, I concede my opposition to the question places me in a small minority. 

I also concede that, whatever its faults, Question 7 is at least technically feasible. Once the question passes, Nevadans will need to present some sort of government-issued identification card prior to voting in person, whether that happens to be a driver's license, a passport, a government employee card, a student identification card from a public university or anything else that a U.S government entity happens to produce that includes a photo of the voter and their name on it. As for those who vote by mail, they can use a number provided by their county's voter registration system instead of the last four digits of their Social Security number or driver's license number to authenticate their ballot if they're feeling appropriately paranoid.

This is all wasteful and unnecessary, but I concede it's not impossibly so.

The same, however, cannot be said for the SAVE America Act, which is being championed by President Donald Trump and is struggling to get support in the Senate.

Trump has been playing hardball with the measure, using it to hold a housing affordability measure hostage (it passed without his signature) and encouraging congressional Republicans to glue provisions from the bill to otherwise unrelated bills, such as a measure to curb stock trading by members of Congress (Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) voted in favor of the modified bill). Since Republicans have controlling majorities over both houses, it's likely only a matter of time before some form of the bill crosses his desk and gains his signature — even if some Republican senators, such as Alaska's Sen. Lisa Murkowski, are vocally opposed to the measure.

Given that, it's important to look past the headlines, read the bill and understand what exactly it will do if it's passed.

The SAVE America Act seeks to require voters to provide identification prior to registering to vote. Unlike Question 7, however, the SAVE America Act is much more restrictive. Where Question 7 only requires some sort of government-issued photo identification — a student photo identification card from a public university qualifies, as does a Nevada concealed firearms permit — the SAVE America Act requires a REAL ID Act-compliant identification card that indicates on the front of the card that the voter is a citizen of the United States.

This requirement is much harder to meet than it appears.

A REAL ID that complies with the SAVE America Act is not the same sort of identification card required by the Transportation Security Administration prior to boarding an airplane, nor is it the sort issued by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. Nevada's REAL IDs do not include any indication of citizenship status because the REAL ID Act of 2005 does not require compliant identification cards to indicate citizenship status. In fact, REAL ID-compliant cards are issued to lawful noncitizens, such as those who have been issued a Green Card.

According to the Institute for Responsive Government, only five states, all of which border Canada, issue Enhanced Identification Cards that provide proof of identity and also provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Though a small number of states, such as Utah, are starting to add indicators of U.S. citizenship on their identification cards, most states, including Alabama, Arizona and Texas, have not. Even among states that indicate citizenship status on their REAL ID-compliant cards, it's unclear how many of them do so on the front of their cards as required under section 3 of the SAVE America Act.

Consequently, Nevadans registering to vote under the SAVE America Act would need to use an alternate form of identification, such as a valid United States passport or a government-issued photo identification card, that shows their place of birth on the card. Though a surprising number of Nevadans have U.S. passports — according to a report published by the Center for American Progress, 56.4 percent of Nevadans, including several nonvoting children, have one — Nevada's driver's licenses and identification cards do not list places of birth, nor has the state ever had any need to include such information on a state-issued identification card. As a result, at least a million Nevada voters will need to provide additional documentation proving their citizenship should they ever need to re-register to vote, such as after a move or to register to participate in a partisan primary election.

For most Nevada voters, the only additional documentation that the SAVE America Act will accept is a birth certificate. If their current full name doesn't match what's on the birth certificate, however, they'll learn the hard way that amending a birth certificate is not trivial. California, for example, only amends birth certificates following court order name changes — a marriage certificate isn't enough. Completing a court order name change, updating a birth certificate to match the new name, updating other identifying government-issued documents and receiving all of the updated documents can take months.

Though supporters of the act (and its predecessor, the SAVE Act) argue that a birth certificate is not strictly required, the act requires voters who are unable to directly provide the information listed above to sign an attestation under penalty of perjury that they are citizens of the United States and submit other evidence to state or local officials demonstrating that they are citizens. What that evidence should be, however, is left to the suddenly short-staffed Election Assistance Commission to provide guidance for within 10 days of the act's passage. After that, Nevada's secretary of state would then need to review that guidance and establish a process under which local election officials should determine if a prospective voter (or one who is merely amending their voter registration) is a citizen of the United States.

Assuming the SAVE America Act were passed on the date of this column's publication, everyone involved — the Election Assistance Commission, the secretary of state and each county election official — would have only a few weeks to work through all of the necessary details — including the drafting of supporting guidance and regulations and any updates to the state's Voter Registration & Election Management Solution — before mail ballots are distributed in October. Meanwhile, anyone foolish enough to update their voter registration following passage of the act would have only a few months to gather and, if necessary, update all documentation demonstrating that they are indeed a United States citizen, even if they've been voting for decades.

But wait! That's not all. 

The SAVE America Act also establishes a private right of action against any election official who registers someone to vote who fails to present documentary proof of United States citizenship. This means the act will allow any gadfly who thinks a noncitizen was somehow registered to vote to directly sue election officials — not their agencies, the officials themselves — in federal court. Even if their reasons for reaching that conclusion were completely spurious or the product of congressionally mandated haste, partisan hacks could jam the courts and bleed election staff dry through ruinous legal fees and court judgments.

Then, because that's not enough, the SAVE America Act includes a "conforming amendment" at the end that eliminates all legal safeguards against removing eligible voters from each state's voter registration list.

In short:

• The SAVE America Act requires Nevadans to present identification cards that neither our state nor most other states have ever issued. Because Nevada doesn't issue these cards, most Nevadans will instead need to present a passport or a birth certificate every time they change their voter registration. 

• If the bureaucrats of a hastily rebranded federal election agency are in a forgiving mood, it may permit states to allow spouses who changed their last name after they married to demonstrate they're citizens using their marriage license in addition to the other documents mentioned above — or it may not since it won't be statutorily required to. 

• Election officials will have a few weeks at most to implement these changes, all while personally defending themselves in court from bored retirees or social media influencers who can sue them anytime they think a noncitizen successfully registered to vote. 

• Meanwhile, you lose all legal protections against your name being removed in error from Nevada's voter registration list.

The SAVE America Act is not a serious attempt to require voter ID. It's a legislative catastrophe designed to strip Nevadans and Americans of their constitutional right to vote. If Congress and President Trump really want to help Nevada conduct free, fair and secure elections, the best place to start would be by throwing the SAVE America Act into the biggest ceremonial paper shredder they can find.

David Colborne ran for public office twice. He is now an IT manager and a recurring opinion columnist for The Nevada Independent. You can follow him on Mastodon @[email protected], on Bluesky @davidcolborne.bsky.social, on Threads @davidcolbornenv or email him at [email protected]. You can also message him on Signal at dcolborne.64.