WHEREAS, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1870 and extended the right to vote to Black men, further providing that: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”; and
WHEREAS, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became effective in 1920 and provides, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex”; and
WHEREAS, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin and also prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements; and
WHEREAS, the burdens of complying with the voting requirements of the federal H.R.22 Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text (the “SAVE Act”) which has been passed by the House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate as S.128, would impose proof of citizenship and registration in person for new voters and people updating their registrations; and
WHEREAS, in 2002, the Philadelphia Bar Association adopted a resolution supporting voting access for persons with disabilities, stating that voting is a fundamental right of all Americans who are at least 18 years old and further stating that exercising the right to vote is crucial to the operation of our free and democratic society;1 and
WHEREAS, in 2015, the Philadelphia Bar Association adopted a resolution supporting the creation of administrative fee waivers for low-income Pennsylvania residents seeking non-driver’s photo identification cards and birth certificates, which would be required under the proposed federal SAVE Act;2 and
WHEREAS, to prove citizenship, the SAVE Act would require a voter to appear in person and provide a birth certificate, United States passport, naturalization proof, enhanced driver’s license, or other documents that prove citizenship; and
WHEREAS, the SAVE Act’s proof of citizenship requirements would further adversely impact military voters, married or divorced people who no longer have documents that match their legal name, voters of color, older Americans, the economically disenfranchised, rural, transgender individuals, survivors of natural disasters, and citizens who do not have a passport or who cannot easily access their original birth certificate (or obtain a certified copy);3 and
WHEREAS, current federal law provides that only United States citizens can vote in federal elections, but the states determine how to comply with this requirement; and
WHEREAS, when registering to vote, Pennsylvania residents self-verify their citizenship;4 and
WHEREAS, the Pennsylvania Department of State reviews voter lists to identify ineligible voters pursuant to Pennsylvania law by using Help America Vote Verification data;5 and
WHEREAS, noncitizens do not vote illegally in detectable numbers;6 and
WHEREAS, only 51% of United States citizens have passports,7 and
WHEREAS, driver’s licenses, REAL IDs, military IDs, and tribal ID cards typically do not document citizenship; and
WHEREAS, according to the Brennan Center, more than 21 million Americans lack easy access to the documents they would need to register to vote under the SAVE Act;8 and
WHEREAS, it is estimated that 84% of women who marry have a birth certificate that does not match their legal name;9 and
WHEREAS, these voters would either have to pay for a new passport or change their birth certificate (which would require a court process and costs), in order to obtain the required documents to be able to register to vote in a federal election; and
WHEREAS, the SAVE Act mandates that states document voters’ citizenship without providing any funding to meet their obligations; and
WHEREAS, voters would no longer be able to register to vote online, by mail, or automatically through states’ departments of transportation;10 and
WHEREAS, efforts to register voters like voter registration drives could no longer occur due to the proof of citizenship requirements, and get out the vote initiatives would be impacted; and
WHEREAS, states like Pennsylvania would have to make extensive changes to their voter registration procedures or possibly maintain different voter rolls and conduct different elections for state and federal purposes; and,
WHEREAS, if enacted, the SAVE Act requirements would take effect immediately and would burden election officials and disenfranchise thousands of eligible Pennsylvania citizens.
NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Philadelphia Bar Association opposes S.128 / H.R.22, insofar as it is not necessary to protect the security of elections or prevent voter fraud by noncitizens, would be a costly and time-consuming burden on state and local election officials, and would impose discriminatory barriers to citizens’ fundamental rights to vote and participate in our democracy; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Philadelphia Bar Association authorizes the Chancellor and/or the Chancellor’s designee(s) to communicate the contents of this resolution to the Senators and Representatives elected to represent Pennsylvania in the United States Congress, and other government officials, bar associations, the legal profession, the media, and the public and take any and all additional action that is necessary to effectuate this resolution.
PHILADELPHIA BAR ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
Adopted: October 23, 2025
1 https://philadelphiabar.org/?pg=BoardResolution1057124262002
2 https://philadelphiabar.org/?pg=ResMay15_1
3 “Approximately 146 million American citizens do not possess a valid passport—for context, 153 million Americans voted in the 2024 presidential general election:
- High rates of passport ownership are overwhelmingly concentrated in [states in the northeast and the Pacific coast], while low rates are concentrated in [southern and south-western] states.
- In seven states, less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport: West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
- Only in four states do more than two-thirds of citizens have a valid passport: New York, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey.
- 84 percent of women who marry change their surname, meaning as many as 69 million American women do not have a birth certificate with their legal name on it and thereby could not use their birth certificate to prove citizenship. The SAVE Act makes no mention of being able to show a marriage certificate or change-of-name documentation.
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The SAVE Act poses a serious socioeconomic issue that would disproportionately impact working-class and lower-income Americans:
- Only 1 in 4 Americans with a high school degree or less have a valid passport.
- Only 1 in 5 Americans with income below $50,000 have a valid passport. Center for American Progress, The SAVE Act: Overview and Facts, www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-overview-and-facts/January 31, 2025 (last accessed September 22, 2025) and Center for American Progress, Passport Possession by State, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/SAVEact-tables.pdf (last accessed October 1, 2025)
4 https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/vote/resources/documents-and-forms/Voter_Registration_Application_English.pdf
5 “The Help America Vote Act of 2002, P.L. 107-252 (HAVA) requires states to verify the information of newly registered voters for federal elections. Each state must establish a computerized state-wide voter registration list and verify new voter information with the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).
States are required to verify the driver’s license number against the MVA’s database. The state submits the last four digits of the SSN, name, and date of birth to the MVA for verification with Social Security Administration (SSA). In addition, SSA is required to report whether its records indicate that the person is deceased.
The information submitted through the Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system is kept confidential and must be used only for voter registration.” U.S Social Security Administration, https://www.ssa.gov/data/havv/ (last accessed September 22, 2025); and further, Election Facts PA, How Does Pennsylvania Figure Out Who Can Vote, https://electionfactspa.com/who-can-vote/ (last accessed September 22, 2025)
6 Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute, Noncitizens Don’t Illegally Vote in Dectable Numbers, https://www.cato.org/blog/noncitizens-dont-illegally-vote-detectable-numbers November 25, 2020 (last accessed September 22, 2025); and further “In voting records dating back to the 1980s, [Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy] Landry’s office identified up to 390 registered voters who could be noncitizens. Of those, 79 voted at least once during that more than 40-year period. However, list-matching alone — whether with SAVE or any other database, all of which contain flaws — isn’t enough to identify ineligible voters, let alone voter fraud. That’s why Landry has rightly acknowledged that the actual number could be even lower, as some of the potential noncitizen voter registrations flagged by the SAVE program could be the result of outdated or inaccurate data.” Gabriella Sanchez and Kevin Morris, Brennan Center for Justice, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/louisianas-chief-election-official-confirms-lack-widespread-noncitizen September 12, 2025 (last accessed September 22, 2025)
7 Nathan Diller, USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2024/10/23/state-department-issues-record-us-passports/75794556007/ October 23, 2024 (last accessed September 22, 2025)
8 “Our research indicates that more than 9 percent of American citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, don’t have proof of citizenship readily available. There are myriad reasons for this — the documents might be in the home of another family member or in a safety deposit box. And at least 3.8 million don’t have these documents at all, often because they were lost, destroyed, or stolen. We also uncovered evidence of racial disparities in these numbers: while just over 8 percent of self-identified white American citizens don’t have citizenship documents readily available, that number is nearly 11 percent among Americans of color.”
Brennan Center For Justice, Millions of Americans Don’t Have Documents Proving Their Citizenship Readily Available, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/millions-americans-dont-have-documents-proving-their-citizenship-readily June 11, 2024 (last accessed September 22, 2025)
9 https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-overview-and-facts/ and further Holly Corbett, Forbes, How the Save Act Could Impact Married Women and Other Voters, https://www.forbes.com/sites/hollycorbett/2025/04/09/how-the-save-act-could-impact-married-women-and-other-voters/ April 9, 2025 (last Accessed September 22, 2025)
10 “For the 2022 cycle, of the 1 million Americans who registered to vote or updated their voter registration, only 5.9 percent did so in person at an election office.” Center for American Progress, The SAVE Act: Overview and Facts, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-overview-and-facts/ (last accessed September 22, 2025).
