Which five House Democrats voted for the SAVE Act and why?
Executive summary
Four House Democrats—Reps. Jared Golden (Maine), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington), Henry Cuellar (Texas) and Ed Case (Hawaii)—voted with Republicans to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on April 10, 2025; reporting consistently identifies those four members as the defectors in that House vote [1] [2] [3]. Some earlier coverage of a 2024 House iteration of the bill counted five Democrats crossing the aisle, which creates ambiguity if a reader intends to conflate the two separate votes [4] [5].
1. Which Democrats actually voted for the SAVE Act in April 2025
Contemporary national and local outlets list the same quartet—Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Henry Cuellar and Ed Case—as the Democrats who voted “aye” when the bill cleared the House 220–208 on April 10, 2025 [1] [2] [3]. Multiple advocacy and news organizations that tracked the roll call and the ensuing backlash name those four explicitly and report zero House Republicans voting against the bill that day [2] [6].
2. Why each lawmaker said they supported the measure
Public statements and local reporting show overlapping rationales: Golden framed the vote as protecting the principle that “the right to vote in American elections should be exclusive to American citizens,” echoing a plain-English “election integrity” argument [7]; Gluesenkamp Perez likewise defended the vote as common-sense protection of citizen-only voting while acknowledging the bill’s flaws and low chance of becoming law in the Senate [8]; Cuellar’s record of an independent streak on certain messaging and immigration-related measures has been documented and consistent with his vote [9]; and Case was listed among centrist Democrats who sided with Republicans in this instance, reflecting a similar emphasis on proof-of-citizenship as a safeguard [1]. Each of these lawmakers anchored their rationale in preventing noncitizen voting—even as most reporting notes that noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal and demonstrably rare [7] [5].
3. Political incentives and district context that help explain the defections
Local and national coverage points to electoral math and centrist positioning as driving forces: Gluesenkamp Perez represents a district that voted for Trump at the presidential level in 2024, making a hardline pro-access-to-citizen-only argument electorally defensible there [10], while Golden and Cuellar have histories of breaking with the House Democratic caucus on specific votes and messaging bills—patterns reporters cite when interpreting their SAVE Act “yes” votes [9] [7]. Reporters also flag that members in swing or conservative-leaning districts sometimes support Republican-sponsored election-integrity measures to placate local voters or stave off primary challenges [10] [9].
4. What opponents and voting-rights groups say about those votes
Voting-rights advocates and many House Democrats called the SAVE Act a voter-suppression measure that would erect barriers to registration and risk disenfranchising eligible voters, a critique repeated across outlets and activist groups after the vote [2] [11]. House leadership framed the bill as undermining elections and democracy, and critics warn it would strain state registration systems, particularly for people who register online or via motor vehicle agencies [5] [12]. Those critiques directly challenge the integrity rationale offered by the four Democrats who crossed party lines.
5. The reporting gap and the “five Democrats” discrepancy
Some outlets—particularly when recounting the 2024 House vote—refer to five Democrats who supported earlier versions of the SAVE Act, which explains the contradictory “five Democrats” language in parts of the media record; the April 10, 2025 roll call that most outlets cite, however, identifies four Democrats as the crossover votes [4] [5] [1]. The available reporting does not provide a consistent fifth name for the 2025 vote, and thus a definitive list for that specific floor action is the four members named above [1] [2].