The debate over the SAVE Act is often framed as a question of election security or voter fraud. But at its core, the legislation is trying to solve an identity problem without fixing the country's identity infrastructure. After more than two decades working on digital identity in government and industry, including serving as CIO for the State of Utah and participating in the Lieutenant Governor's voting equipment selection committee, I've learned that policies that depend on identity assurance cannot succeed unless the underlying identity system is designed to support them.

The central flaw in the SAVE Act is architectural. It assumes the United States already has a reliable, universal way to establish who someone is and whether they are eligible to vote. We do not.

America's Identity System Is Fragmented by Design

The United States has never adopted a national identity card. This reflects deeply rooted concerns about federal power, surveillance, individual autonomy, and the constitutional role of states. Unlike many other democracies, the U.S. has historically chosen a decentralized approach to identity.

The result is a patchwork of credentials issued for unrelated purposes such as driver's licenses, birth certificates, passports, Social Security numbers. None of these were designed to function as a universal proof of identity or citizenship across all contexts.

The SAVE Act effectively attempts to turn this patchwork into a national identity system by requiring documentary proof. But that is not what these credentials were built for.

Documentary Requirements Create Real Barriers

When legislation relies on physical or legacy documents to establish voter eligibility, it introduces friction that falls unevenly across the population.

Some eligible voters do not have ready access to birth certificates or passports. Obtaining them can require time, travel, and fees. Election officials may be placed in the difficult position of evaluating decades-old records or interpreting variations in documentation standards across states and eras. Imagine expecting a county clerk to confidently validate a seventy-year-old birth certificate and ensure it belongs to the person presenting it.

These are not edge cases. They are predictable outcomes of relying on identity artifacts rather than identity infrastructure. The result is increased administrative burden, inconsistent implementation, and a heightened risk of disenfranchising legitimate voters.

Identity Infrastructure Comes Before Identity Policy

If policymakers believe stronger identity assurance is necessary for elections, the logical response is not to impose new documentary requirements. It is to invest in modern identity infrastructure.

Such a system would need to be:

• Universal, available to every eligible American
• Free, so that access to democratic participation is not conditioned on ability to pay
• Federated, respecting the constitutional role of states
• Privacy-preserving, minimizing unnecessary data collection and surveillance risks
• Interoperable, so eligibility can be verified consistently across jurisdictions

Building this kind of system takes time, money, and sustained coordination. There are no quick legislative fixes that can substitute for foundational infrastructure.

Emerging Models Show What's Possible

There are already efforts underway that illustrate how a more modern identity approach could work.

For example, Utah has begun exploring state-endorsed digital identity (SEDI), a federated model in which states play a central role in endorsing digital credentials that can be used across multiple contexts. While initiatives like this are still evolving and raise important policy questions—including cost, governance, and accessibility—they demonstrate that it is possible to rethink identity in ways that respect federalism while improving assurance and usability.

The key point is not that any current program is ready to serve as a nationwide voting credential. It is that meaningful progress requires architectural thinking about identity itself, rather than procedural requirements layered on top of legacy documents.

There Are No Magic Band-Aids

The SAVE Act reflects a familiar impulse in public policy: when confidence in a system declines, add verification steps. But when those steps depend on infrastructure that does not exist, they risk creating new problems without solving the original one.

If the United States believes its elections require stronger identity assurance, then the country must be willing to build an identity system that is universal, equitable, and fit for purpose.

Until then, measures that increase the likelihood of disenfranchising eligible voters in the name of security are not a durable solution.

Fix identity first.

Photo Credit: Using an old birth certificate to vote from ChatGPT (public domain)