Murkowski Speaks Out Against SAVE America Act on Senate Floor

Murkowski Speaks Out Against SAVE America Act on Senate Floor

Washington, DC-Today, U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) delivered a speech on the Senate floor highlighting the challenges the SAVE America Act would pose for Alaskans and the state's election processes if enacted.

Watch the speech here.

The speech as prepared below:

Madam President, I've come to the floor to speak about the SAVE America Act. Unfortunately, I must rise in opposition.

While I support the general intent of this bill - that only U.S. citizens should vote in our elections and valid ID should be presented when voting - I cannot support it as drafted.

There are multiple versions of this bill, so I am going to focus on the latest: the substitute amendment to Senate Bill 1383, which is in front of us this week. And I am going to focus on the practical challenges it creates for Alaskans.

First, the bill's provisions are effective immediately. Alaska would have to comply with new rules that contradict state law when we are already deep into this election cycle. The general election is less than eight months away. Alaska would be forced to bear the entire cost of implementation because the bill does not include any federal funding. This would be a tall order, and scarce resources would have to be redirected from other important programs in the state.

Second, the bill requires the presentation of documentary proof of citizenship-in person-to register to vote. This would be a major departure from how most Alaskans currently register to vote. In 2024, over 80 percent of applicants registered by mail, online, or through PFD applications and in 2023, that number was more than 90 percent. There were about 29,000 new voter registrations in 2024. The SAVE America Act would have forced over 25,000 of these Alaskans into Alaska Division of Elections offices, and potentially state public assistance agencies, DMVs, and other locations the state has designated as voter registration agencies.

Alaska has six regional election offices-in Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome, Wasilla, and Kenai-where the SAVE America Act is clear that Alaskans could present documentary proof of citizenship. What is less clear is whether Alaskans could provide these documents at DMVs, state public assistance offices, or other locations that currently provide in person voter registration services, though at very low levels.

The SAVE America Act does not change federal law mandating that states designate their public assistance and disability offices as "voter registration agencies." That might extend options for voter registration beyond the six regional election offices, but the law is not consistently enforced. The Sitka office, for example, is currently "limited to general inquiries" only. If that changes, it's unlikely to be feasible. Those offices are not equipped to handle the influx of in-person voter registrations the SAVE America Act could force upon them, especially without additional resources, and regardless, should be focused on their core mission to support the basic needs and self-sufficiency of Alaskans.

States may also continue to designate other government and non-government offices as voter registrations agencies, but only if those offices agree. I seriously question who will want to do that because of the new private rights of action and criminal penalties the bill would create. Or if the State will be able to afford to either train enough employees or hire new ones to do this work-at any voter registration agency.

Let's talk about what in person voter registration means in Alaska, as opposed to New York City or Miami. The practicalities of forcing Alaskans to register to vote at one of our six regional election offices, or possibly another location in the state, is not a simple matter. About 83 percent of Alaska's communities-20 percent of our total population-are not connected by road. This means many Alaskans would have to fly to one of these offices to register.

If you're in Southeast, you may have to fly to Juneau. If you're in Southwest, to Anchorage. In Northwest, that could mean you're flying to Nome. If you're on the North Slope, you're flying to Fairbanks.

That's going to be hard for thousands of Alaskans. It's going to be expensive. And many who are eligible to vote, who are citizens of our country, will decide they can't afford it or simply aren't going to do it. They won't register. They won't vote. And while disenfranchisement may not be the intent of the SAVE America Act-in my home state, I fully expect it to be the outcome.

Let's say you're a 17-year-old who lives in Savoonga, a village out on Saint Lawrence Island. You're turning 18 in October and want to vote for the first time this year. You're excited about it-you're ready for it-until you understand what it now requires from you.

You're going to have to book a flight to Nome. That's going to cost you $720. You're going to have to stay overnight, and there aren't a lot of hotels in Nome, so, a night at the Aurora Inn is $310. Add in your food and cab fare, and you're probably looking at around $1,100.

For a quick trip to Nome to register in person to vote.

And remember: you're 17, about to turn 18, and not exactly flush with cash to spend on this or anything else.

That's a best-case scenario. Flying in and out of Savoogna isn't guaranteed. Jets can't land there, so you have to take a prop engine plane. You can get weathered in or out and that can delay your trip by several days.

If a storm blows in and you can't travel for a week, and you've left this until the last minute, as we know teenagers like to do, you might miss your window and not be able to vote this year. And if you get stuck during your trip, that'll add to your costs until you can get home.

Or maybe you're a fisherman who lives in Unalaska, way out on the Aleutian chain. The flight to Anchorage, which is the closest option to register to vote even though it is about 800 air miles away, costs more than $1,400. That's just for the flight. You'll also need a hotel, cabs, and food while you're in Anchorage because it is not possible to fly in, go register, then fly home the same day.

Or let's say you are a resident of Kipnuk, which was devastated by Typhoon Halong in early October 2025. Your house washed away, and even though you had the documents you need to prove your citizenship, you lost those along with your home.

Storms like that aren't as rare as they used to be. Dozens of communities in Alaska have been impacted by them just in the past few years.

A couple thousand Alaskans are now rebuilding and counting on the federal government to help them, not add to their burden.

Not to mention, these are often fall storms. Future voters could lose everything they need to register to vote just days or weeks before an election, and it would be impossible to replace those documents in time.

One final example - Alaska did not become a state until 1959. So, let's say you are an 85-year-old Alaska Native man who has spent his entire life in Selawik. You were born in your parents' house. Getting a certified copy of your birth certificate if you have never had one before will be incredibly difficult.

That leads to the next set of problems with the SAVE America Act: the cost and potential challenge of securing the documents you need to prove citizenship in the first place. Passports cost at least $130 and applications take four-to-six weeks to process unless you pay a fee to expedite everything. Alaska's passport statistics are pretty high compared to other states, but only about 50 percent of Alaskans have one. Getting a certified copy of your birth certificate or marriage certificate from the Alaska Office of Vital Records costs $30 for each document. And, by the way, right now, Vital Records has a notice on its website that there is a processing time of one-to-two months. So, save up, and plan well in advance.

I also want to emphasize the particular challenge this documentary proof of citizenship requirement poses for women. In Alaska, an estimated 155,000 female citizens age 15 years and older have names that do not match their birth certificates due to last name changes or hyphenation. So, they'll have to gather a paper trail of evidence that may not be readily available, costs money to get, and takes weeks or months to receive to prove not only who they are but also that they are U.S. citizens. I can speak personally to how difficult this is-a supervisor at the DMV had to sign off that I am in fact myself in order for me to get my REAL ID because I did not have enough documentary proof.

Let's assume that you are registered to vote. The SAVE America Act now includes a new photo identification requirement to vote in a federal election. As I've repeatedly said, I support voter ID and Alaska requires ID to vote, but this bill goes too far and could disenfranchise voters who have been voting for decades, simply because they cannot produce a piece of ID with a photo on it. Even Tribal IDs would no longer be sufficient to prove identity unless they have a photo and an expiration date which many don't currently.

The bill includes an exception that would allow voters to provide the last four digits of their Social Security Number and an affidavit attesting they were unable to obtain a copy of a valid photo identification "after making reasonable efforts to obtain such a copy." But the bill does not define reasonable efforts, opening voters to liability and potentially resulting in different standards across the states.

This version also goes further and sets a new default rule for federal elections of in-person voting, which contradicts Alaska's long-allowed "no excuse" absentee voting by mail.

Absentee ballots would only be allowed if the voter (1) is a member of the uniformed services and stationed abroad or out-of-state; (2) is unable to vote in person due to "illness, infirmity, hospitalization, or physical disability; (3) is the primary caregiver of an individual who is medically incapacitated; or (4) will be absent from the state due to verified travel. There's also now a fifth "hardship" category, but the bill's drafters are clear that this is meant to be construed narrowly. The bill then goes on to prescribe very specific chain of custody rules for a state's handling of absentee ballots on top of the other changes the SAVE America Act would mandate be implemented immediately.

Over 50,000 Alaskans voted by mail in the 2024 general election, but this bill would largely put an end to that.

Again, I support the basic stated goals of the SAVE America Act. Only U.S. citizens should vote in our elections, and federal law already makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Voters should be required to present identification, which state law requires and lists specific forms of ID work to prove identification in Alaska. But, as written, this bill would create huge impediments for Alaskans that I simply cannot support.

I have additional issues with the reforms the legislation would impose on states, including the federalization of the election process, as opposed to the state-driven process contemplated by the Constitution.

One example is the requirement for states to run their voter rolls through a federal database that was not designed for this and has already had legitimate issues for multiple states.

I'm not convinced of the need for these sweeping changes, given the lack of any credible evidence of noncitizens voting at any significant level in Alaska. The risk of disenfranchising Alaskans with the constitutional right to vote is just too great.

And I'm not happy to see new provisions tucked into this substitute amendment, targeting transgender individuals simply because there's an opening to do so. What do those have to do with voting?

Those provisions add to my opposition, but the practical impacts on Alaskan voters are the easiest to express here, and they have not been solved by this updated text. I've introduced 15 amendments to make the bill work better for Alaska, and these are really just the tip of the iceberg of changes that need to be made.

So again, the SAVE America Act may be well-intended. But how its goals are achieved also matters. Implementation matters. We cannot create a situation that does not work for Alaska, where many who should be able to vote and who may have been voting for years are suddenly no longer able to.

The states should remain in charge of their own elections. They should set their own requirements based on what works for them, because we cannot shift to a system that works for many rightful voters, but not all, and particularly so close to Election Day and with no funding for the states to implement new mandates.

This proposal may work for Florida. It may work for Utah. It may work for most of the Lower 48. But it does not work for Alaska, so I oppose it.

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