State Voter ID Measure Moves Forward After SAVE America Act Fails to Pass
Ohio Republicans are pushing to make voter photo ID a permanent part of the state’s constitution. The Ohio Senate passed Joint Resolution 10 (22-9 on party lines), which would put a requirement in the constitution that voters show government-issued identification when voting in person. If the Ohio House approves the measure, voters would decide it in November.
Supporters argue that relying onyl on statute isn’t durable because election laws can be repealed after political shifts, pointing to Virginia’s repeal of similar requirements. They say the measure builds on Ohio’s existing photo ID law passed in 2023.
Critics and at least one Republican opponent say the proposal is incomplete because it would apply only to in-person voting and not require ID for mail-in ballots, perhaps creating a loophole in the constitutional language.
Meanwhile, the article notes that a related federal effort-the SAVE America Act-appears to have stalled in the U.S. Senate after failing to advance despite Republican control.
With the SAVE America Act, and its popular voter ID element, bogged down in the Senate for the foreseeable future, one state’s Republican lawmakers have advanced a measure to strengthen their own voter ID requirement by embedding it in the state constitution itself.
Ohio’s state Senate on Wednesday passed Joint Resolution 10, a resolution that would ask the state’s voters to approve making voter ID part of the state’s central governing document.
If the state House of Representatives approves the measure, voters could be making the final decision in November.
The Ohio Senate passed a Joint Resolution on Wednesday hoping to enshrine Ohio’s photo ID laws for voting in the state constitution. https://t.co/d0GNxj2GMJ pic.twitter.com/JzTkpAZ43Q
— NBC4 Columbus (@nbc4i) June 5, 2026
The measure would amend the state’s constitution to include a requirement that voters show government-issued identification to cast a ballot in-person.
As WEWS-TV in Cleveland noted, the Buckeye State already has had voter ID as a matter of law since 2023. However, the resolution’s supporters say, experience elsewhere has shown that a law isn’t enough, because laws can be easily changed.
“Virginia indeed passed photo ID laws, however after several years of operation, surviving judicial challenges, Virginia repealed its photo ID requirement in 2020 after a single seat in the General Assembly flipped,” Republican state Sen. Jane Timken, one of the resolution’s primary sponsors, said on the Senate floor on Wednesday, according to The Center Square.
The resolution, she said, “is about ensuring long-term security in our elections,” the outlet reported.
Another primary sponsor of the resolution, Republican state Sen. Theresa Gavarone, said it’s building on the foundation Ohio put in place when House Bill 458, an election integrity package that included photo ID requirements, was passed by lawmakers and signed by Ohio Republican Gov. Mark DeWine three years ago.
“Since House Bill 458 was enacted, our state now has one of the strongest photo ID laws in the country,” Gavarone said. “SJR10 continues that work by ensuring that we continue to have the highest standards in order to vote.”
Her Republican colleagues apparently agreed. Democrats did not. The resolution passed in the state Senate on an almost entirely partisan 22-9 vote.
The one Republican who opposed the measure did so because he said it didn’t go far enough.
The resolution covers only in-person ballots and does not address photo identification requirements for mail-in ballots.
Republican state Sen. Al Cutrona said that flaw needed to be addressed.
“When you mail in your ballot, you should have to have some type of form of ID,” he said, according to Ohio Capitol Journal. “Unfortunately, I don’t see that here, and that raises major concerns for me. I think this is creating a loophole within our own constitution if this is indeed passed.”
Cutrona said he hopes lawmakers in the Ohio House will strengthen that provision.
It was unclear when the House would take up the measure. According to Ohio Capitol Journal, the Senate resolution’s counterpart, House Joint Resolution 9, is still at the committee stage.
However, it’s expected to pass comfortably, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Proposed constitution amendments require a three-fifths majority, according to the newspaper, and the GOP has that in both houses of the Ohio legislature.
And despite Democratic opposition, voter ID is not just popular among Republicans. As The Columbus Dispatch noted, a 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans, regardless of party, favor requiring identification to vote.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act — or SAVE America Act — appears dead in the Senate after failing in a vote on Thursday.
Four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — joined Democrats in voting against adding the act to a budget reconciliation package aimed at funding immigration enforcement.
With Republicans holding a three-vote majority in the chamber — and Senate Democrats united in their opposition — those four votes meant the SAVE America Act wouldn’t pass even on a simple majority.
That means even if Republicans did away with the filibuster, which functionally blocks bills that can’t muster 60 votes, the act would be doomed — at least for the remainder of the current Congress.
Tillis, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, and McConnell, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, will both be leaving the Senate in January.
Collins is up for re-election this year but is unopposed in Tuesday’s primary in Maine.
Murkowski — one of the Senate GOP’s most visible Trump opponents — will not face voters again until 2028.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
" Conservative News Daily does not always share or support the views and opinions expressed here; they are just those of the writer."
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
