The GOP Wants to Disenfranchise Millions of Voters

We have to stop the "Silencing Americans Act"

If we’re going to come out of the next four years with our democracy somewhat intact, we’ve got to do everything within our power to ensure fair elections in 2026. Which is why we absolutely, positively must stop H.R. 22—the voter suppression bill Republicans call the SAVE Act, but we’re referring to by a more accurate title—the "Silencing Americans Act."

Many, many of you have written us about this bill already. It’s popping up in the news and all over social media because it is, put simply, the biggest threat to voting rights we’ve seen in a generation. So we wanted to reach out to talk about our strategy for blocking this bill—and ask some of you to make a call or send an email to help.

What is the Silencing Americans Act?

H.R. 22, or the “Silencing Americans Act,” as we're calling it, is an attempt at mass disenfranchisement disguised as an election integrity bill. It would require every voter to show proof of citizenship bearing their current name when registering to vote—which might not seem like a big deal, unless you spend two seconds thinking about the ramifications.

• Overnight, it’d essentially end online and mail-in voter registration.

• Proof of citizenship doesn’t mean a simple driver’s license. It means a birth certificate or a passport – documents that tens of millions of citizens simply don’t have access to.

• Married people who’ve changed their names wouldn’t be able to register using their original birth certificates—effectively disenfranchising millions of women.

• Trans and nonbinary people who’ve changed their names to reflect their gender identity would also face massive challenges to voting -- and the State Department’s ban on updating sex designations on passports (if upheld in court) would add to the difficulty of satisfying the bill’s proof of citizenship requirements.

• The burdensome requirements would disproportionately impact younger voters (how many college students do you know who have a birth certificate stashed in their dorm rooms?), voters of color, low-income voters, and elder voters.

• Arizona and Kansas tried similar legislation and tens of thousands of eligible voters were disenfranchised.

And what’s the justification for unleashing all that chaos? Republicans would tell you this bill is desperately needed to stop non-citizens from voting in national elections—a nonexistent problem invented by Donald Trump to prop up his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. It’s something that pretty much never happens, is already illegal, and that states have plenty of safeguards in place to prevent it already. So to repeat: This is not an election integrity bill. It’s a voter suppression bill.

Here’s how we stop it.

Let’s start with the good news: We absolutely, 100% can stop this bill from becoming law, even with Democrats being in the minority in the House and Senate.

The dynamics here are pretty simple: Republicans are fully united around this bill. Most Dems are staunchly opposed, but some are still reeling from the election and think supporting extreme immigration-adjacent legislation will make them look big and tough. We saw it a few months ago with the passage of the Laken Riley Act. We need to put a lot of pressure on these specific Dems to ensure they vote no—especially in the Senate, where Republicans need Democratic votes to overcome the filibuster.

House Strategy

H.R. 22 may get a vote for final passage in the House as early as Thursday. And short of a miracle, it’s going to pass. Yep, we’re not going to dance around it. It’s likely going to pass the House. There are many cases where the Republicans’ minuscule majority and internal infighting/chaos mean that there’s a path to killing a Republican bill by peeling off a few Republican votes. But this is a signature MAGA campaign issue, and we expect every Republican to vote for it. Which means even if every Dem votes no, it’ll advance to the Senate.

And yet, we’re still going to ask some of you to call your Democratic representatives on this one. And the reason is, as ludicrous as it sounds, when bills pass the House with some Democratic support, wobbly Democratic senators become more likely to support them too. We need Dems in the House to vote no to ensure that Democratic senators don’t capitulate.

So, if you are represented by: Lauren Gillen, Josh Harder, Jared Moskowitz, April McClain Delaney, Kristen McDonald Rivet, Jared Golden, Donald Davis, Tom Suozzi, John Mannion, Susie Lee, Marcy Kaptur, Vicente Gonzalez, Henry Cuellar or Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, please call today and urge them to vote no. And then share the page with friends in your district!

• Use our handy call tool and script to call your representative >>

• And/or, use our email tool to email your representative >>

Note: We are focusing our outreach on these members because of their recent voting history (this session or last) and because we haven’t seen a public statement about how they intend to vote on this bill.

Senate Strategy

If we do what we need to, this bill is going to die in the Senate. 60 votes are required to overcome a filibuster, and Republicans only have 53 seats. That means they need seven Dems to help them get this across the finish line.

Could there possibly be seven Democrats willing to vote for this horrible bill? We hope not—but only a few months ago, twelve Dems voted for the Laken Riley Act—one of the cruelest anti-immigrant bills in years (and constitutionally dubious, to boot).

So, if you are represented by one of those twelve senators—Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman, Ruben Gallego, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, Jon Ossoff, Gary Peters, Jacky Rosen, Jeanne Shaheen, Elissa Slotkin, Mark Warner, or Raphael Warnock—please call them today and urge them to vote no. And then urge friends in your state to call as well!

• Use our handy call tool and script to call your senator(s) >>

• And/or, use our email tool to email your senator(s) >>

Don’t have a Member of Congress on either list?

Between President Trump, Chancellor Musk, and the heinous legislation Republicans are introducing every day, there’s a LOT to be talking to your elected officials about right now. We don’t want to pile on by asking you to make calls or sending emails that aren’t urgently needed.

That said, there’s no harm in calling. It’s good for Republicans to know constituents are paying attention to the harm this bill would do. It’s good for Dems taking the right position on this bill to get a thank you call. The call and email tools above will work for every representative and senator, so you're welcome to use them, regardless of who represents you.

Together, we're going to save our elections from the Silencing Americans Act.

- Indivisible

P.S.—Trump recently tried to force through some of these voter suppression efforts with an Executive Order. That order is blatantly unconstitutional and is already being challenged in court. We’re following the legal challenges closely, but consider the EO, for now, to be political theater. The real fight for now is against H.R. 22.