SAVE America Act: Solving a Problem That Doesn't Exist While Creating New Ones

Why this matters in NY-23

Voter ID sounds reasonable. Polling consistently shows that roughly 83% of Americans support requiring identification to vote. That number is real, and the intuition behind it is understandable — people want elections to be secure.

The question isn’t whether election integrity matters. It does. The question is whether the SAVE America Act — the specific bill Langworthy is promoting — actually addresses a real problem, and what it costs to implement.

This fact-check examines three claims from Langworthy’s Facebook post promoting the SAVE Act, using data from the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Brennan Center for Justice, Pew Research, and the bill text itself.

Statement

Source: Facebook Post Posted by: Congressman Nick Langworthy (verified account) Date: February 2026

Langworthy posted a graphic promoting the SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act), claiming it would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and protect election integrity — with the backing of overwhelming public support.

Claim-by-Claim Analysis

1. “Noncitizens are voting in federal elections”

Verdict: Illegal (TRUE) | Occurring at scale (NOT SUPPORTED)

The SAVE Act is premised on the idea that noncitizen voting is a meaningful threat to American elections. This premise has two parts — and they lead to very different conclusions.

Is noncitizen voting illegal? Yes. It has been a federal crime since the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Penalties include up to 5 years in prison, fines, and deportation. Every state also has laws against it. This is not in dispute.

Is it happening at scale? The evidence says no.

The Heritage Foundation — a conservative organization that actively seeks evidence of voter fraud — has documented approximately 100 cases of noncitizen voting over more than two decades. During that same period, Americans cast billions of ballots.

What existing law already does:

Every voter who registers must attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are a U.S. citizen. False attestation carries up to 5 years in prison for citizens and deportation for noncitizens. Election officials verify registrations against government databases. States regularly audit rolls and refer suspected noncitizen registrations for investigation.

In plain language: Noncitizen voting is already illegal and essentially nonexistent. The Heritage Foundation — which has every incentive to find fraud — has documented roughly 100 cases over 20+ years. The SAVE Act proposes to solve a problem that existing law already addresses and that occurs at a rate indistinguishable from zero.

2. “83% of Americans support requiring proof of citizenship to vote”

Verdict: TRUE — but MISSING CONTEXT

The polling is accurate. Multiple surveys — Pew Research Center, Gallup, and others — consistently find that roughly 80-85% of Americans support requiring some form of identification or proof of citizenship to vote. This is one of the most popular policy ideas in American polling.

What the polls don’t ask is how respondents feel when they learn the implementation details:

Who lacks readily accessible proof-of-citizenship documents:

What this means in NY-23: In Tioga County alone, 23.3% of residents are 65 or older — many born in an era of less consistent record-keeping. The county has no public transit. The nearest passport office may be an hour’s drive. For an elderly resident on a fixed income without a car, obtaining a $165 passport to prove citizenship they’ve exercised for decades represents a meaningful barrier.

When poll respondents are informed that voter ID requirements could prevent eligible citizens — particularly the elderly, rural residents, and low-income Americans — from voting, support drops significantly.

In plain language: Americans overwhelmingly support the idea of voter ID. They are less supportive when they learn it could prevent their grandmother from voting because she can’t find her birth certificate from 1945.

3. “The SAVE Act protects election integrity”

Verdict: MISLEADING

The phrase “election integrity” suggests the bill addresses real vulnerabilities in how Americans vote. Examining what the bill actually requires reveals a different picture.

What the SAVE Act does:

The mechanism mismatch: The bill shifts the burden of proof from enforcement agencies to individual voters. Instead of catching the rare noncitizen who attempts to register (and faces deportation), it requires every citizen to produce documents that millions don’t have readily available.

Who it affects most:

• Elderly voters with outdated or lost documents
• Rural voters far from government offices (relevant across NY-23)
• People displaced by disasters who lost documents (Tioga County experienced $478M in flood losses from Tropical Storm Lee)
• Married women whose names don’t match their birth certificates
• Low-income citizens who cannot afford replacement documents or travel to obtain them

What it does NOT address:

The actual vulnerabilities in election systems — cybersecurity of voting machines, ballot chain-of-custody procedures, polling place access, voter roll maintenance — are unrelated to whether a registrant presents a birth certificate. The SAVE Act addresses none of these.

In plain language: The SAVE Act doesn’t just require ID — it requires specific documents that millions of eligible American citizens don’t have readily available. Based on the data, it is more likely to prevent your neighbor from voting than to catch a noncitizen trying to. That’s not election integrity — it’s a barrier to participation.

The Pattern

This fits a pattern documented across multiple Langworthy claims: Semantic Deception.

“Election integrity” sounds like protecting voting. The bill’s actual mechanism primarily affects eligible citizens, not noncitizens. The framing uses a universally popular idea (secure elections) to build support for a specific implementation that creates costs and barriers for the voters least able to absorb them — disproportionately elderly and rural residents in districts like NY-23.

See also: “No SNAP cuts” when $295B less will be spent. “Not a single person” loses Medicaid when 1.3M+ are projected to. "$31,500 is tax free" when $30,000 was already law.

Questions This Raises

1. If noncitizen voting is already illegal and occurs at rates near zero, what specific problem does the SAVE Act solve?

2. How many eligible voters in NY-23 lack readily accessible documentary proof of citizenship?

3. What is the cost — in dollars and travel time — for a rural NY-23 resident to obtain a replacement birth certificate or passport?

4. Why not strengthen enforcement of existing law (which already imposes prison and deportation penalties) rather than adding barriers to voter registration?

5. Has Langworthy’s office assessed how many of his own constituents — particularly elderly and rural residents — could be affected by DPOC requirements?

Sources

• Heritage Foundation: Election Fraud Database — documented noncitizen voting cases
• Cato Institute: Analysis of noncitizen voting frequency
• Brennan Center for Justice: Studies on voter fraud incidence rates
• Pew Research Center: Public opinion polling on voter ID requirements
• Congress.gov: SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) bill text
• U.S. Census Bureau: Citizenship documentation accessibility data
• Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (1996): Federal penalties for noncitizen voting
• Tioga County demographic data (Census/ACS): Age distribution, transit access

Note: This entry documents publicly available information from congressional records, independent research organizations, and polling data. Sources include both conservative (Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute) and nonpartisan (Brennan Center, Pew Research) organizations. Readers may draw their own conclusions.

Last updated: February 10, 2026