NACo Election Administration Resource Hub for Counties

The SAVE America Act (H.R. 7296/S. 3752) proposes significant new federal requirements on state and local election systems without providing dedicated funding, sufficient implementation time, or flexibility for the wide variation in election systems administered at the local level. Elections in the United States are primarily carried out by state and local governments — counties alone run more than 100,000 polling places supported by 770,000 certified poll workers. Election administrators would need to redesign systems, hire and train workers, integrate databases, and conduct voter education while voters themselves would need time to obtain required documentation. Moving forward without these safeguards risks creating administrative barriers for eligible voters, placing new legal and operational burdens on election workers, and undermining confidence in the election process. 

The SAVE America Act creates new federal requirements without providing dedicated federal funding, leaving states and counties on the hook for major costs including election system redesign, staffing increases, essential workforce training, public education, database integration, and legal compliance. State and local elections are estimated to cost around $5.3 billion. Moderate estimates show that implementing the SAVE America Act would exceed current federal funding made available by the Help America Vote Act ($45 million for FY 2026) 11.3 times — an increase in election costs of approximately $510 million per election cycle. This estimate draws on national election administration spending research from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and ballot volume data reported by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS).

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, commonly known as the Elections Clause, provides that state legislatures determine the times, places, and manner of federal elections. Congress retains the authority to make or alter those regulations, except regarding the places of choosing Senators. The SAVE America Act imposes a uniform federal standard on an election system that is intentionally decentralized and governed primarily by state law — stripping state and local authority to implement elections that best fit the needs of our citizens. This creates a direct conflict for local election administrators who must simultaneously comply with state law and new federal mandates, with no clear legal guidance on how to reconcile the two. Any significant reinterpretation of these roles needs to be clarified by the courts. Congress should work with states and counties before imposing federal standards that override established state election authority.

Early voting has already started. State and local election administrators will not have adequate time to implement new verification procedures, system changes, and training programs to ensure adherence and reconciliation of all state and federal laws. The bill would be effective immediately upon passage with no time for state or local election administrators to implement changes to election systems with proper administrative safeguards in place, bringing a real risk of voter disenfranchisement and carrying the potential of undermining public confidence in voting. Successful implementation would require 18 to 24 months at minimum.

Many eligible voters may face limited time to obtain the documentation needed to verify citizenship. Standard REAL ID compliant driver’s licenses do not uniformly verify U.S. citizenship. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) explains that only enhanced driver’s licenses provide proof of citizenship, and only five states currently issue them: Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington. Recent studies highlighted by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that 9 percent of eligible voters do not have, or do not have easy access to, documentary proof of citizenship. They also found that 52 percent of registered voters do not have an unexpired passport with their current legal name and 11 percent do not have access to their birth certificate. Applied to the 211,144,275 active registered voters reported in the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report, those latter figures suggest that approximately 109.8 million registered voters may lack an unexpired passport with their current legal name and about 23.2 million may not have access to their birth certificate. As a result, many eligible voters without a passport or enhanced license may need additional records, such as a birth certificate and, in some cases, name-change documentation, to demonstrate citizenship. Obtaining those records can take time, which may create challenges for individuals attempting to gather the necessary documents or lacking resources to comply within the limited time frames and could increase administrative review burdens for state and local election officials. Without adequate time to secure and review the necessary documentation, some eligible voters could become ineligible to vote in an upcoming election cycle.

The SAVE America Act imposes criminal penalties for “registering an applicant to vote in an election for Federal office who fails to present documentary proof of United States citizenship,” but it does not clearly define which election actors could be held liable for that act. It also requires a state or local official, in certain cases, to determine whether an applicant has “sufficiently established” citizenship and to sign an affidavit explaining the basis for that decision. That ambiguity is especially concerning in jurisdictions that rely on local election staff, temporary poll workers, and same-day or early voting personnel to review documents and process registrations in real time. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report found that 49.9 percent of counties reported difficulty recruiting poll workers and that 59.2 percent of poll workers were age 61 or older. Against that backdrop, the SAVE America Act creates new criminal liability in a way that is both punitive and ambiguous for election administration. In practice, the bill could chill participation by the very workers counties depend on to administer elections accurately and efficiently, while also placing those workers in the difficult position of making time-sensitive eligibility decisions that, if made incorrectly, could expose them not only to criminal liability under the bill but also to potential claims under existing federal law if eligible voters are improperly denied registration or voting rights.

Implementing documentary proof of citizenship would require massive training for election workers which remains an unfunded mandate. The Election Assistance Commission’s 2024 EAVS reported that 772,433 poll workers served during the 2024 general election. Using that reported staffing level, and assuming 2 to 4 hours of additional instruction for new documentary proof of citizenship procedures, implementation would likely require between 1.5 million and 3.1 million additional training hours for poll workers alone during the initial implementation cycle. Total training needs would be higher when accounting for election administrators and other staff responsible for voter registration processing and documentary verification.

Systems are already in place and used on the back-end by state and local governments to verify voter eligibility. The SAVE America Act proposes to check citizenship verification on the front-end of the process rather than make improvements to old and aging technical systems currently in use — further compounding the need for a proper implementation timeline. Federal lawmakers should work with state and local governments to improve and modernize back-end election systems.

Election administration is decentralized and varies state by state. The SAVE America Act imposes a single federal standard on election systems that operate very differently across states. States that primarily conduct elections by mail — such as Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington — rely heavily on back-end data verification rather than in-person procedures. Requiring a uniform in-person citizenship verification model would force these states to redesign their systems entirely. Congress should study the impacts of in-person citizenship verification to ensure implementation does not place election administrators or voters in unnecessary harm and work with states and local governments to develop policies and procedures that meet the diversity of how elections are administered across the country.

U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC)

The EAC is a bipartisan, independent federal commission that was established to help officials meet election administration guidelines set forth by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). Comprised of 4 commissioners (2 from each political party), the EAC provides counties and the public with election-related topics, develops voluntary voting system guidelines, and acts as the national clearinghouse for election administration information.

The EAC is also the main source of federal grants for election administration activities as authorized by HAVA. Currently, election security grants are the primary form of funding available to counties under the law. More information on election security grants in your state can be found on the County Explorer tool.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is responsible for our nation’s public security, including anti-terrorism efforts, cybersecurity and disaster prevention. DHS houses the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) that works with both public and private partners to ensure cybersecurity and physical security of critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure. In recent years, CISA has also provided resources on election security and disinformation and misinformation.

DHS provides some federal funding for election security through the Homeland Security Preparedness Grants.

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

The U.S. Department of Justice oversees the enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice, including enforcing election laws and partnering with state and local law enforcement officials to prosecute election crimes. Some DOJ state and local assistance grant funds can be used on election worker protection activities.  

U.S. Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service plays a critical role in elections by handling election mail.

• Election mail includes ballots, voter registration cards and absentee voting applications
• The 2024 Official Election Mail Kit includes resources on election mail, reminders and recommendations

U.S. Congress

The Election Observer Program sends designated election observers to monitor congressional elections, particularly those with tight races and potential to be contested. The program is codified by the Congressional Observer Access Act of 2024, or HR 6513.

Election observer laws vary by state, view each state’s policies here.

The following county-level best practices have been curated from past NACo Achievement Award and EAC Clearinghouse Award winners.

Snohomish County, Wash.

Distinguished Voter Education and Communications Initiatives, 2023 U.S. EAC Clearinghouse Award

Unleashing the Storytelling Power of Comic Book Art to Engage and Inform Voters: The county used comic book styling to make its voter guides more engaging and approachable and expanded its use to voter education materials, covering topics from voter registration to tabulating results. Using visuals and comic book-style art can simplify complex information. This style also contributes to the county’s brand identity, allowing voters to recognize which materials were from Snohomish County Elections.

Maricopa County, Ariz.

Best in Civic Education and Public Information, 2023 NACo Achievement Award Winner

The county formed an Elections Command Center that was made up of six elected officials and a team of elections professionals to serve as the central source for election-related information. The center held 16 press conferences, over 600 reporter interviews and responded to more than 500 media outlets.

Hamilton County, Ohio

Outstanding Innovations in Elections, 2022 EAC Clearinghouse Award

The county was recognized for its Behind the Ballot Tours, where tours of the Board of Elections office and warehouse were given to show election administration processes, such as conducting audits and testing voter equipment accuracy. Increased confidence in elections and election integrity were reported after the tour.

Anne Arundel County, Md

Outstanding Innovation in Election Cybersecurity and Technology, 2022 EAC Clearinghouse Award

The county was recognized for its Mail-in Ballot Sorting, Scanning and Timestamping Project, where a process was developed to sort, scan, time stamp and receive mail-in ballots with the Tritek Sorting machine. The project increased efficiency and ballot security.