SAVE Act would cost WA millions to run elections, Secretary of State Hobbs says
Washington’s top elections official on Thursday blasted a controversial federal bill that he said would disenfranchise voters and lead to millions in additional costs for the state.
Democrats and critics have slammed the SAVE America Act, arguing that President Donald Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud are baseless. Republicans broadly argue that the bill is needed to ensure election integrity.
During an early-morning news conference Thursday, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs spoke alongside fellow secretaries of state Steve Simon of Minnesota and Stephanie Thomas of Connecticut. Also joining: U.S. senators Alex Padilla of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.
Trump is pushing hard for the bill ahead of this year’s midterms.
Padilla said Thursday that he doesn’t think the votes are there to get the bill to Trump’s desk. Still, he said, Democrats are ready “for any parliamentary shenanigans to try to sneak this through on a majority vote.”
Hobbs described the act as an effort to squelch voter participation.
“The SAVE Act doesn’t save anything,” the Democrat said. “It just suppresses Americans’ ability to access the ballot box.”
Voters under the bill would be required to prove their citizenship when they register to vote and to show photo ID when voting.
Hobbs said Thursday that the measure would lead to costly technological and administrative changes to the election system at the county and state levels. It would require millions of extra dollars to run elections and would create additional hurdles for voters and for those conducting elections, he said.
Those who vote by mail would need to include a copy of their identification when casting a ballot, he said.
“Does your 80-year-old mom have a copy machine at home? Because mine doesn’t,” he said, “including my son – he’s a young kid – but he doesn’t have a printer in his home.”
Washington State Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh pushed back against Hobbs’ framing.
Walsh told McClatchy via text Thursday that the proposed act would bolster integrity and restore trust in elections.
“There’s NOTHING wrong with requiring voter ID,” he wrote. “Nothing.”
Washington is among a handful of states that conducts universal mail-in voting, meaning voting is mostly conducted by mail and all registered voters automatically receive a mail ballot.
The House-passed version of the SAVE America Act would not prohibit mail-in voting. But the president has signaled that he wants to bar the practice with certain exceptions, including for military members, disability or illness.
Estimates indicate that 2026 midterm-election costs could increase by $35 million to $40 million statewide under the proposal, Hobbs said. He noted that the Washington legislative session wrapped last week, and that the state has not budgeted for that expense.
Counties would see millions of dollars in new yearly costs because of the act’s paperwork requirements, he said.
The state historically had gotten help with funding when the federal government passed new election requirements, he said. Under this bill, though, the state would receive no federal fiscal aid, he added.
Updating the state’s voter registration and database systems would take months and would cost $20 million, he said. The price tag for a statewide public-education campaign “to prevent disenfranchisement” would cost about $3.6 million, he added.
In Walsh’s view, updating the state’s registered voter databases is necessary, and he argues that they need to be managed more effectively.
“Ultimately, the Secretary’s main whine is that the SAVE Act will cost money,” said Walsh, who also serves as a Republican state representative. “That’s a lame reason to oppose good election integrity reform.”
Hobbs said that the bill would attract immediate legal challenge if it’s adopted.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown joined several of his AG counterparts last month in writing a letter to Senate leaders opposing the act and the nationalization of elections.
During a Wednesday news conference hosted by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, Thurston County’s auditor decried the SAVE America Act as “the most dangerous, anti-democratic piece of legislation that I have ever seen.”
Auditor Mary Hall rejected claims that the bill is about security, instead alleging that it’s an attempt to make the democratic process unreachable for millions of eligible voters.
“It creates mandates that ignore the reality of how Washington state votes and how our residents have voted for years,” she said. “From an administrative standpoint, implementing this before a general election truly is impossible.”
The Heritage Foundation conservative think tank runs a database showing a sampling of proven election-fraud instances. Its data suggests that between 1982 and last year, there have been 1,620 such cases across the country.
Washington state counted 15 occurrences of election fraud, per the database. Texas and Illinois, by contrast, logged 113 and 117, respectively.
Murray’s colleague, fellow Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, has also condemned the legislation.
Cantwell said the push to eliminate mail-in voting with certain exceptions is “outrageous,” telling The Spokesman-Review that she doesn’t know if the state could prepare for the election in November.
“You would decimate our current system,” she said, according to The Spokesman.
The state’s two Republican Congress members, U.S. representatives Dan Newhouse and Michael Baumgartner, have both embraced the bill.
Newhouse emphasized in a February statement that the federal government has the responsibility of protecting federal-election integrity.
“Requiring identification and proof of citizenship to vote ensures that only American citizens are participating in our democratic process,” he said.
The Republican added that although he backs “common-sense reforms,” he doesn’t support calls to nationalize elections.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional comments from federal lawmakers and the Thurston County auditor.