The Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, further referred to as the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election bill that President Donald Trump is pushing Congress to enact. The vote was 218-213, with Republicans unanimously voting in favor and all but one Democrat voting against it. The one Democrat voting yes was Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.

The bill seeks to solve the proposed issue of noncitizen voting, an issue that is known to have notably few instances of occurrence with the Brennan Center for Justice stating

 “In the jurisdictions we studied, very few noncitizens voted in the 2016 election. Across 42 jurisdictions, election officials who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes in the 2016 general election referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions.”

“Forty of the jurisdictions — all but two of the 42 we studied — reported no known incidents of noncitizen voting in 2016. All of the officials we spoke with said that the incidence of noncitizen voting in prior years was not significantly greater than in 2016.”

“In the ten counties with the largest populations of noncitizens in 2016, only one reported any instances of noncitizen voting, consisting of fewer than 10 votes, and New York City, home to two of the counties, declined to provide any information.”

“In California, Virginia and New Hampshire — the states where Trump claimed the problem of noncitizen voting was especially acute — no official we spoke with identified an incident of noncitizen voting in 2016.”

This clear data reinforces the current understanding among officials, and experts: voter fraud of any kind, including noncitizen voting, is rare.

The legislation seeks to do this through proposed changes to ID requirements when participating in elections with extreme requirements far outside the norm, especially for a country without nationalized elections.

Section 2(a) of the SAVE Act defines the valid forms of Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC)  that voter registration applicants must submit under the SAVE Act:

1. a form of photo identification consistent with the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a United States citizen

2. a valid United States passport;

3. a military identification card coupled with a military service record showing the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States;

4. a valid government-issued photo identification card from a federal, state, or Tribal government showing the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States—despite the fact that, apart from passports, most government-issued forms of identification no not list places of birth, instead merely listing current residence;

5. a valid form of photo identification issued by a federal, state, or Tribal government (such as a standard driver’s license) that does not comport with (4) above, so long as it is coupled with:

a. a certified birth certificate (with several qualifiers), which people who have changed their names—including tens of millions of married women—would be unable to use;

b. an extract from a United States hospital record of birth showing the applicant’s

place of birth in the United States;

c. a final adoption decree showing the person’s name and that their place of birth was within the United States;

d. a Consular Report of Birth Abroad or a Report of Birth of a United States citizen issued by the Secretary of State;

e. a Naturalization Certificate or Certificate of Citizenship issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security; or

f. an American Indian Card issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security with the classification “KIC.”1

These different forms of ID combine to create a real demonstrated threat to voting within the United States with potential disenfranchisement for millions of American citizens. With The Center for American Progress reporting that “More than 140 million American citizens do not possess a passport.” and “As many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.” with many of these instances presenting points where many of these voters may lose their ability to register or vote in the upcoming midterm elections.

The proposal now heads to the Republican-led Senate, where it will need to overcome a 60-vote threshold, which seems unlikely. However; Politico reported earlier this week that GOP leaders are so desperate to fundamentally alter how Americans vote that they’re exploring potential procedural changes that would make it possible to pass the regressive legislation, despite existing cloture rules.

Overall this legislation presents a grave threat to the continued participation in United States elections, due to both the potential disenfranchisement and the undeterred hunt for a nonexistent issue of voter fraud.