Trump's election overhaul bill hits Senate roadblock

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are pressing ahead with a sweeping voting overhaul bill, but the effort is running into a familiar obstacle on Capitol Hill: a lack of votes in the Senate. The legislation, known as the SAVE America Act, includes three main provisions: requiring proof of citizenship to vote, requiring photo identification to vote in federal elections, and mandating that states share voter data with the Department of Homeland Security so noncitizens can be purged from voter rolls. Trump argued the bill is needed because of vulnerabilities in the election system. “According to the DHS review, state voter rolls, and public records, they identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections,” Trump said during his primetime address Thursday night. Trump and DHS have said they found more than 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls in four states — California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania — but no supporting evidence was provided for how DHS arrived at the number. There also is no indication that noncitizens have voted in large numbers. Nevada election officials said the claims were unfounded. It is illegal for foreign nationals to vote in federal elections, though some cities allow noncitizens to vote in local contests. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the department is working through records to determine whether people registered as noncitizens actually voted and where. “We are going through these files one by one and 1. identifying the individual 2. Did they vote? And 3., where did they vote at? That's hard. It's easy with states that participate,” Mullin said. In the House, Republicans are trying to advance the SAVE America Act by attaching it to military and farmer funding. But the push has stalled in the Senate, where Republican leadership has said it does not have the 60 votes needed to pass it without Democratic support. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaking Wednesday, suggested he is open to different approaches if there is a viable route forward. “If I thought there was a path to getting a positive result, a positive outcome, I'd be willing to do just about anything,” Thune said. Sen. Thom Tillis, R- N.C., who is retiring, said Thursday that implementing the changes would be unrealistic this close to the midterms. “I have been trying to explain for nearly a year. That the SAVE Act, whether it's the Save Act, the Save America Act, the new save legislation that's being proposed in the House, save goes to Hollywood, save goes to Hawaii, whatever the sequels are, all of them are fundamentally flawed and impossible to implement by this election,” Tillis said Thursday on the Senate floor. Another option under consideration would provide grant money to states that implement election reforms, though such a program would not cover everything proposed in the SAVE America Act. READ MORE: https://13wham.com/news/nation-world/... _______________ Stay up to date with our social media: 13 WHAM on Facebook:   / 13wham   13 WHAM on Twitter:   / 13wham   13WHAM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/13whamtv/?h... 13WHAM on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@13wham?lang=en 13 WHAM Daily Local News Digest:    • 13WHAM Local News Digest   For more information, visit https://13wham.com/ Have a news tip? Send it directly to us: Email us: [email protected] Call the Newsroom: (585) 334-8700 WHAM is a NY based station and a ABC Television affiliate owned and operated by Deerfield Media, Inc and receives certain services from an affiliation of Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is one of the largest and most diversified television broadcasting companies in the country today. #13WHAM #News #Rochester #NewYork