Trump-Reagan Election Enforcement Act

Key Points

• States that don't pass laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration would lose 10 percent of their federal highway funding starting the first fiscal year after 2026, with penalties growing 5 percentage points every year after that.
• To keep full funding, states must require voters to show specific documents like a REAL ID showing citizenship, a U.S. passport, a military ID with service record, or a government photo ID paired with a certified birth certificate or other citizenship proof.
• People who register to vote by mail would have to travel to an election office in person and show their citizenship documents before the deadline for their registration to count.
• States must run ongoing programs to find and remove noncitizens from voter rolls, allow private lawsuits against election officials who register someone without proper proof, and create criminal penalties for those officials.
• The bill was just introduced by a single sponsor and referred to committee, and a similar approach was previously limited by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling on federal voter registration forms, so its path to becoming law and its exact implementation are both uncertain.