Legislation

Is it ‘Voter Suppression’ to Require Proof of Citizenship to Vote?

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act is proposed federal legislation that would require individuals to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to show photo identification when voting in federal elections. 

Proponents state that the Act is necessary to prevent voter fraud and keep non-citizens from voting in federal elections. They explain that the millions of illegal aliens currently living in the U.S. necessitate strengthening election integrity. 

Opponents, on the other hand, claim “instances of noncitizen voting are rare.” They also contend that the Act amounts to “voter suppression” that would “block millions of Americans from voting.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, for example, states its opposition to the Act: 

In every form, the SAVE Act would require American citizens to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. Our research shows that more than 21 million Americans lack ready access to those documents.

The SAVE America ACT would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), known as the “motor voter law,” which mandates that states offer voter registration for federal elections at state motor vehicle agencies. NVRA also requires states to offer voter registration by mail-in applications. 

The NVRA also requires applicants to sign a statement, under penalty of perjury, that they meet the requirements to vote. But it does not require them to present any proof of citizenship. 

Representative Chip Roy, R-TX, introduced the first version of the SAVE Act in 2024, where it passed in the House but failed in the Senate. Rep. Roy reintroduced the bill in 2025, with the House voting 220 to 208 to pass the measure. Again, the bill died in the Senate. 

Roy introduced a slightly different version of the bill, HR 7296, renamed the SAVE America Act, on January 30, 2026. The newer version, also dubbed SAVE 2.0, added the requirement for voters to present a photo ID to vote in federal elections and mandates that states purge non-citizens from voter rolls. 

The House is scheduled to vote this week on the newer version, and members who support the measure are putting pressure on the Senate to also bring the bill to a vote

Massive Bipartisan Citizen Approval

Voter ID laws have widespread approval. A recent survey from Pew Research Center demonstrated that Americans overwhelmingly support, by a margin of 83-16%, “requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.” Voters from every ethnic background approve of these laws. 

Pew reported: 

Support for photo ID requirements also remains widespread in both parties. More than nine-in-ten Republicans (95%) and about seven-in-ten Democrats (71%) favor requiring all voters to show government-issued photo identification to vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson stated his support for the SAVE America Act, stating, “The American people deserve free, fair, and secure elections. That starts with proving your identity when you vote.” 

On CNN, news anchor Dana Bash questioned House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries about popular support for voter ID laws. He responded, “We know that states are the ones who are empowered to conduct elections, and every state should be allowed to decide the best way to proceed, to ensure that there’s a free and fair election.” 

He went on to accuse Republicans of trying to engage in “voter suppression.” 

Hans Von Spakovsky, an attorney who has served on the Federal Election Commission, writes: 

Voters want both access and security. And contrary to the claims of critics, you can provide both. Making sure that every eligible citizen is able to vote does not prevent you from implementing measures intended to safeguard that vote.

To this end, Von Spakovsky recommends that states certify the accuracy of voter registration lists, verify citizenship of voters, require voter ID, and limit absentee ballots. He also suggests banning vote harvesting by third parties should be banned and giving election observers complete access to the entire voting and ballot counting process. 

According to Ballotpedia, 49 states “require applicants to declare that they are U.S. citizens in order to register to vote in state and federal elections.” North Dakota does not have a statewide voter registration system but does require voter identification to vote. 

However, the online resource adds, “Seven states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Wyoming — have laws requiring proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration.” Of these, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana have not implemented those systems, and a court decision invalidated Kansas’ law. 

In addition, “Ohio requires proof of citizenship only when registering to vote at a Bureau of Motor Vehicles facility … and Tennessee, requires proof of citizenship for some registrants if there are questions about a person’s citizenship status.” 

Ballotpedia also explains, “As of October 2025, 36 states required voters to present identification in order to vote at the polls on Election Day, but many states provide for exceptions to these rules.” 

States like California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Vermont require no ID to vote.  

Related articles and resources: 

Are Elections Secure? 10 Examples of Election Issues Around the Country

Can the US Postal System Be Trusted with Our Ballots?

Election Security Is on the Ballot in November and December

Georgia’s Election Integrity Act – Voter Suppression or Election Integrity?

The Heritage Foundation: Election Integrity and the American Republic

Voter Fraud: The Election Process, What Can Go Wrong, and Previous Contested Elections and Incidents Why (and How) Christians Should Vote

Photo from Shutterstock.

Texas Doctor Surrenders Medical License Amid Prosecution for Child Mutilation

A prominent Texas pediatrician surrendered her state medical license last week amid allegations she performed illegal “transgender” medical interventions on minors.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Dr. May Lau, then Medical Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult clinic at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, last October for violating state law prohibiting the performance of transgender surgical and hormone procedures on patients under 18 years old.

Dr. Lau voluntarily gave up her Texas medical license on October 23 — but continues to deny any wrongdoing.

“Dr. Lau decided to move her medical practice to Oregon and saw no reason to continue to maintain her Texas license,” her attorney told The Texas Tribune.

“Dr. Lau continues to deny the Texas Attorney General’s politically- and ideologically-driven allegations.”

Attorney General Paxton celebrated Dr. Lau’s departure from the state and vowed to continue the case against her:

May Lau has done untold damage to children, both physically and psychologically, and the surrendering of her Texas medical license is a major victory for our state.
[But] my case against her for breaking the law will continue, and we will not relent in holding anyone who tries to “transition” kids accountable.

SB 14 prohibits doctors from performing transgender medical interventions on minors. The law took effect in September 2023 and remained effective throughout its successful appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, which upheld it in June 2024.

Three months later, Attorney General Paxton sued Dr. Lau for violating SB 14 at least 22 times.

The filing presents evidence showing Lau illegally prescribed testosterone to at least 21 healthy female patients following the implementation of SB 14, either by writing a script after the law went into effect or by prescribing the patients an improper number of hormone refills past the law’s effective date.

Lau falsely identified several of these female patients as males.

In another case, Lau allegedly diagnosed a young man with a non-existent endocrine disorder to ensure his insurance would pay for opposite-sex hormones.

The Texas Attorney General’s office believes this patient took estrogen for gender confusion, not hormone dysfunction. He later sought treatment from QMed, formerly QueerMed — an organization dedicated to dispensing opposite-sex hormones to people confused about their sexual identity, including minors.

Though Lau continued billing this patient for “endocrine disorder” treatments, other doctors at Children’s Medical Center Dallas billed him for “gender dysphoria” treatments.

The lawsuit uses Lau’s medical background, in conjunction with her alleged bad practice, to paint a picture of a doctor financially and professionally intertwined with radical gender ideology.

Lau claimed to specialize in “adolescent female and male sexual and reproductive health, along with treating youth with gender dysphoria” while heading up the Adolescent and Young Adult clinic at Children’s Medical Center Dallas.

She boasted associations with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine and Gender Education and Care Interdisciplinary Support, a now-defunct organization reportedly dedicated to performing transgender medical interventions.

She routinely co-authored research with members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a radical activist group made up of members who benefit financially and ideologically from performing transgender surgical and hormone interventions.

The filing estimates 20% of Lau’s published work relates to gender “transitioning.”

Perhaps the most damning piece of background information cited in the filing is a YouTube seminar Lau gave in January 2020 — nearly five years before her alleged misconduct.

In the presentation, titled “Transgender Care of Adolescents and Adults,” Lau admitted:

  • She changes her patient’s records to reflect their subjective “gender identity,” rather than their biological sex.
  • She had at least witnessed, if not performed, transgender surgeries on minors before they started opposite-sex hormone treatments.
  • Adolescent patients experiencing sexual identity confusion often change their name, sex and preferred pronouns from visit to visit.
  • Transgender hormone interventions can cause permanent side effects, including sexual dysfunction.
  • Scientists have not studied the long-term effects and safety of using “puberty blockers” — medications used off label to block the normal production of estrogen and testosterone — on healthy children.

Lau’s statements in the seminar show she knew transgender hormone and surgical interventions were experimental, and that performing them on gender confused adolescents could cause permanent, life-long consequences for people who often change their “identity” later in life.

She chose to perform these unproven, dangerous procedures on teenagers anyway.

Texas is right to pursue legal action against Dr. Lau and others that facilitate and profit from the mutilation of children.

All states, regardless of their political leanings, should adopt policies like SB 14 in recognition of the science, which proves transgender medical interventions do not help children.

Additional Articles and Resources

Focus on the Family Transgender Resources

Why the Move to Re-Pathologize ‘Trans’ Identity is Important

New Paper Details ‘Emerging and Accumulating’ Adverse Effects of ‘Gender Affirming’ Estrogen

Texas’ Ban on Transgender Medical Interventions for Minors Can Take Effect, Court Rules

FTC Begins Investigation ‘Gender-Affirming’ Medical Community for Deception, False Advertising

FBI Investigates Three Major Hospitals for Mutilating Children

INVESTIGATION: Taxpayers Fund Transgender Experiments on Children

HHS Releases Report on Harms of ‘Transgender’ Medical Interventions for Minors

New Research: 50-Fold Increase in ‘Gender Dysphoria’ in UK

Doctor Refuses to Publish Major Study Finding Puberty-Blocking Drugs Don’t Help Children

England’s NHS Stops Dispensing Puberty Blockers for Children — Not Safe or Effective

Do Not Fall for the ‘Affirm Them or They Will Die’ Lie‘ Transgender Means Many Different Things’ — And Nothing

Radical Colorado ‘Transgender’ Bill Threatens Parents’ Rights and Free Speech

A radical bill in Colorado, under the guise of providing “legal protections for transgender individuals,” is being rushed through the General Assembly by activist legislators. They are the same ones who call opponents of the bill “hate groups,” equating them with the KKK, and said such group echo “hateful rhetoric … against the trans community.” 

While supporters claimed the bill is about “civil rights,” it directly threatens parent-child relationships, schools and businesses. The proposed legislation unconstitutionally limits free speech, religious freedom, and parents’ rights to provide for the care, nurturing, and moral and religious upbringing of their children.

Real civil rights don’t take away rights from others.

HB 1312, “Concerning Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals,” actually gives special rights to those with a psychiatric condition listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR), as “gender dysphoria.”

The bill was introduced late in the day on Friday, March 28. On Monday a committee hearing was scheduled for the next day, April 2, giving opponents little time to rally opposition. While more than 100 people testified against the legislation, the vote passed out of committee with a 7-4 vote along party lines.

The legislation seeks to force parents, schools and businesses to kowtow to false and harmful transgender ideology.

One of those who rallied the troops against the bill was Erin Lee, who began exposing the gender cult in Colorado schools after a middle school encouraged her daughter to embrace sexual identity confusion.

Typically, Colorado legislators talk about proposed measures with stakeholders – those who have an interest in the legislation. Witnesses testified the bill had “been worked on for over a year,” but state Representative Jarvis Caldwell said he had just learned about the legislation on Monday, April 1.

Jarvis asked if other stakeholders, “like parent groups that are not a part of the LGBT community,” were consulted.

Representative Yara Zokaie, a former community organizer, responded with contempt for conservatives and Christians, saying:

“A well stakeholdered [sic] bill does not need to be discussed with hate groups. And we don’t ask someone passing civil rights legislation to go ask the KKK their opinion.”

Representative Javier Mabrey concurred, saying, “But I agree, there’s no reason to go to the table with people who are echoing the hateful rhetoric going around about the trans community.”

So only transgender activists and ideologues were consulted about the bill.

Here are explanations of several sections of HB 1312, which is really eight bills rolled into one, noting how different provisions negatively affect basic constitutional rights.

Section 2: When a parent is involved in a custody case before a court, and their child insists he or she is a different “gender” or sex, the bill declares that it is “coercive control” – child abuse – if the parent does not affirm the child’s mental, psychological and emotional confusion. The measure’s summary of this section says:

When making child custody decisions and determining the best interests of a child for purposes of parenting time, a court shall consider deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s gender-affirming health-care services as types of coercive control.

A court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interests of the child.

According to HB 1312:

“Deadname” means to purposefully, and with the intent to disregard the individual’s gender identity or gender expression, refer to an individual by their birth name rather than their chosen name. …

“Misgender” means to purposefully, and with the intent to disregard the individual’s gender identity or gender expression, refer to an individual using an honorific or pronoun that conflicts with the individual’s gender identity or gender expression.

Parents, who knew their child’s sex from birth and named their child, are forced to use the new name and pronouns chosen by their child.

The bill violates parental rights and infringes on their First Amendment rights to free speech and religious liberty.

Section 3: HB 1312 prohibits Colorado courts with complying with “another state’s law that authorizes a state agency to remove a child from the child’s parent or guardian because the parent or guardian allowed the child to receive gender-affirming health-care services.”

In other words, Colorado will now be a destination state for a parent who wants to harm his or her child with irreversible, body-damaging drugs, hormones and surgeries. Colorado courts may not cooperate with the parent’s home state – even if that state has taken custody away from that parent.

Sections 4, 5 and 6: Public schools with dress codes “must not create or enforce any rules based on gender and must allow each student to abide by any variation of the dress code,” the bill’s summary states. Schools must also allow students to change their names from their given, legal name. The new law applies to charter schools.

Finally, Sections 8 and 9 add “deadnaming” and “misgendering” to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, “prohibiting these discriminatory acts in places of public accommodation.”

The bill forces people to support false and damaging gender ideology. It requires employees and businesses to agree that it is possible to change one’s sex, violating the religious freedom of many.

All of Colorado must now “collaborate with a mental disorder,” as Psychiatrist Paul McHugh wrote.

HB 25-1312, “Legal Protections for Transgender Individuals,” is likely to pass the full House. One it has been assigned to a Senate committee, concerned citizens may learn about how to participate in Colorado’s legislative process and sign up to testify.

Related Articles and Resources

Erin Lee tells the story of fighting gender ideology in her daughter’s school.  

American College of Pediatricians: No Benefits From ‘Gender-Affirming’ Interventions

Are Sex and Gender Different Things?

Mom Files Lawsuit Against School District for ‘Transitioning’ Daughter Without Her Consent

A Singularly Christian View of the Transgender Problem

‘Trust the Science’ About ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ What Science?

What Are Male and Female in God’s Story?

Why a Trans Woman is a Not a Woman

‘The WPATH Files’ Exposes ‘Surgical and Hormonal Experiments on Children’

The WPATH Files – Transgender Interventions Are ‘Unethical Medical Experiments’