What federal laws require citizenship verification for US voters?
Executive summary
No current federal statute mandates documentary proof of U.S. citizenship as a condition to register and vote in federal elections; instead federal law requires an attestation of citizenship on the federal mail voter registration form and constrains states’ ability to impose extra documentary requirements for federal-office registration forms [1] [2]. Several federal provisions, agencies and proposed measures—most notably the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the federal mail-registration form rules, the SAVE verification tool, recent executive orders and pending congressional bills—shape how citizenship is checked in practice, but none currently impose a universal documentary-proof requirement for all federal voters [2] [1] [3] [4] [5].
1. The baseline federal rule: attestation on the NVRA federal form, not documentary proof
The National Voter Registration Act requires states to “accept and use” the federal mail voter registration form and that form asks applicants to provide a unique identifier and check a box attesting under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens, but it does not require documentary proof of citizenship for registration to federal elections [1] [2].
2. Court interpretations: state documentary requirements can be preempted for federal elections
Federal courts have repeatedly found that state laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship to accompany federal-form registrations are preempted by the NVRA unless the state can show the extra requirement is “necessary,” leading to rulings that block certain state proof-of-citizenship schemes from applying to the federal form [2] [1].
3. Federal prohibition on noncitizen voting exists, but enforcement tools differ
Federal law prohibits noncitizen voting in federal elections, a substantive bar that underlies many federal enforcement efforts, yet the statutory enforcement mechanism for registration relies on attestation and election-administration rules rather than a statutory, across-the-board documentary-proof mandate [6] [1].
4. Verification frameworks and federal databases: SAVE and agency coordination
Federal agencies maintain systems used to verify immigration or citizenship status—most prominently the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE tool—which some jurisdictions and federal actors use to check registrations; those tools are administrative, not statutory requirements that uniformly compel documentary proof at registration [3] [4].
5. Executive actions and administrative pushes: attempts, limits, and legal questions
Recent executive orders (for example, an order directing the Election Assistance Commission to seek documentary-proof changes to the federal form and directing DHS to share records) and petitions to the EAC have attempted to build a federal documentary-proof regime, but such actions raise separation-of-powers and preemption questions and depend on agency rulemaking and litigation to take effect [4] [7] [8].
6. Pending and proposed federal legislation: the SAVE Act / H.R.22 and similar bills
Congress has considered bills that would amend the NVRA to require documentary proof of citizenship for federal-office registration—most notably the proposed SAVE Act (H.R.22) which would change federal law to demand proof for federal registrations—but as of the reporting these are legislative proposals, not enacted law [5].
7. Practical reality: a mixed patchwork, not a single federal documentary mandate
Because the federal form does not require documentation and because the NVRA preempts state efforts to add documentary barriers to federal-form applicants, the practical regime is a mix of state laws (some of which attempt proof requirements and some of which are blocked or limited), federal attestation rules, database checks, agency initiatives and pending bills—resulting in varying citizenship verification practices rather than a single federal statutory proof-of-citizenship requirement [9] [10] [1] [2].
8. What reporting does not show and why it matters
Available reporting and legal summaries document the statutory baseline, court rulings, agency tools and proposed bills, but they do not establish that any current, enforceable federal statute compels documentary proof for every person registering to vote in federal elections; the difference between prohibition of noncitizen voting and a federal proof-of-citizenship requirement is central and often conflated in public debate [2] [6] [1].