MAGA’s push to ram through the most restrictive voter suppression bill ever considered by Congress is coming to a head. 

Democracy Docket’s Jim Saksa and Yunior Rivas have been tracking developments about as closely as anyone in the D.C. press corps. In a series of reports this week, they detailed how President Donald Trump has gradually ratcheted up the pressure on senators to find a way to get the SAVE America Act to his desk. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to be enough.

Last Sunday, Trump declared he “will not sign other bills” until the Senate approves the measure, which would require that people registering to vote show documentary proof of citizenship, and that voters show photo ID. He repeated that message the next day. (Trump has also said he wants a ban on no-exuse mail voting, and two non-voting provisions targeting trans Americans, added to the bill.)

By Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) couldn’t take it any more. He announced he’d schedule a vote for SAVE this week. But Thune made clear he wouldn’t use the novel procedural maneuver MAGA has been demanding to overcome a guaranteed Democratic filibuster — meaning the bill will likely fail. 

That sent some Trump backers into a spiral of anger and vituperation — and had Democrats reaching for the popcorn. 

“Thune is either lying or doesn’t understand the Senate rules,” wrote Cleta Mitchell, in one of the milder responses, while others called the Senate leader a “RINO hack” and condemned his “betrayal.”

Finally, in what looks like an effort to mollify MAGA, Thune said the Senate would hold a marathon debate over SAVE, which it will use to falsely attack Democrats for condoning illegal voting. That’s coming this week, and Democracy Docket will cover every angle. But it doesn’t appear that Thune has found a way to actually get the measure through. 

With national voter suppression legislation likely doomed, Florida Republicans pressed ahead with their own state-level SAVE law, which would likewise require anyone registering to vote to show a passport or original birth certificate to prove their citizenship. Democracy Docket’s Jen Rice tracked every step as the GOP rushed the measure through the legislature this week and on to the desk of Gov. Ron De Santis.

Meanwhile, Democracy Docket’s Jacob Knutson and Matt Cohen have been doggedly following another crucial, related voting story: the FBI’s corrupt probe into Arizona’s 2020 election. It’s related because, as they reported Thursday, Trump allies say the investigation shows why SAVE America is so urgently needed to stop illegal voting.

Of course, it does nothing of the kind. Instead, the probe appears to center, Jacob and Matt explained, on records from a 2021 “audit” of Maricopa County’s vote — a project that was initiated by election-denying GOP lawmakers and failed basic measures of security, accuracy, and reliability, according to an expert report. And Jacob also brought word of a separate investigation into Maricopa’s 2020 elections — this one by the investigative arm of ICE. 

As Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) put it: “Americans are tired of election conspiracies and lies that undermine our democracy.”

Jacob also reported on warnings from other Arizona Democrats that the probes — like a similar one in Fulton County, Georgia — appear aimed in part at getting access to the state’s voter rolls, which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently suing to obtain.

Speaking of DOJ: Yunior scooped more news on the department’s bid to tighten the rules for overseas and military voters. New Mexico and Oregon have both received letters from DOJ urging them to more strictly enforce ID requirements for these voters — part of a broader GOP push to make it harder for U.S. citizens living abroad to exercise their right to vote. Last week, Yunior was first to report on the effort when he revealed a similar letter to California.

But it’s the nationwide voter roll grab that appears to be DOJ’s real voter suppression priority. Matt noticed the effort’s leader, DOJ civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon, admitting to a friendly interviewer that, despite getting access to nearly half the states’ rolls, the department has unearthed just “dozens and dozens” of cases of noncitizen voting. 

That might sound troubling. But we did the math, and if Dhillon found 50 votes by noncitizens, it would amount to just 0.000007 percent of all votes over just the last five national elections. 

Finally, you’ve got to read this: Yunior took a look at emails exchanged between DOJ and Oklahoma over the voter rolls issue. For months, the department thought the state was blowing off its request. But it turned out that DOJ included a typo in the email address it used  — it literally wrote “ifo” instead of “info” at the start — meaning Oklahoma hadn’t received its messages.

And remember, these are the people who want you to trust them with the sensitive personal data of millions of American voters.

“This entire story is insane,” wrote Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias on Bluesky. “The incompetence from start to finish is just nuts.”