The SAVE Act's Impact on Women Voters Isn't a Coincidence. It's Voter Suppression.

[niyad]

The SAVE Act’s Impact on Women Voters Isn’t a Coincidence. It’s Voter Suppression.
PUBLISHED 3/26/2025 by Beth Lynk

A dangerous attack on voting rights comes amidst critical local elections in 2025.



People participate in a protest against the Trump administration’s mass firing of government workers and civil servants in front of the Capitol building on Presidents’ Day, Feb. 17, 2025. (Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images via AFP and Getty Images)

Shirley Chisholm said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” I carry these words with me every day, along with the awareness that if they try to take your seat, it means that they are intimidated by your power. And it’s our responsibility to fight to keep it—like my grandmother, Doris Sheafe, who, at age 23 in 1937 (before all Black women had the right to vote) made her voice heard and testified before Congress about the American Youth Act. Now, in 2025, we are spending Women’s History Month not only celebrating our power but also fighting for it as we honor the women who paved the way. Women—especially Black women—are still fighting for equal rights and opportunities in the U.S. Meanwhile, members of Congress are threatening to undermine the hard-fought, fundamental right to vote for all Americans, including millions of women, under the guise of misleading allegations of voter fraud. And they’re ironically calling it the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.

Make no mistake: The SAVE Act is not going to “save” anything. This legislation would create unnecessary barriers to registering to vote in every state. It would require all voters to provide proof of citizenship documents in person when registering to vote or updating their registration—provisions that effectively end online, automatic and mail-in voter registration. Women who change their name after marriage or divorce would face unnecessary barriers to registering to vote.

Hoping your birth certificate will be sufficient proof of citizenship? Think again, because as many as 69 million married women do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name, and as many as 3.3 million eligible trans voters face the same barrier. How about your passport? The reality is that more than 140 million American citizens, including 56 percent of Black Americans, do not have a passport, a document that also requires a legal name.


House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks to the media after a vote on the government funding bill at the Capitol on Sept. 18, 2024. Johnson was determined to include the SAVE Act in the budget bill, but after the bill failed to pass, he removed it. It was initially passed by the House in July 2024 as a standalone bill with a recorded vote of 221-198, but was never taken up by the Senate. (Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)
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Additionally, in a post-Roe reality where the courts have more say on women’s reproductive healthcare than ever before, more than 1,000 judges are on ballots across the country this year, including critical state supreme court races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Women’s rights are always on the ballot, and the SAVE Act is a targeted effort to silence voters with the potential to impact millions of women. Right now is the time to call our U.S. senators and tell them to vote no on this dangerous bill. With so much at stake, it is more important than ever for us to check and update our voter registration to make sure we stand ready to decide the future of our communities and protect our democracy in 2025.

https://msmagazine.com/2025/03/26/save-act-voting-rights-women-trans-voters-elections/

[Igel]

1. My wife changed her name when we re-married.

She has a RealID TX driver's license. (She'd gone by her maiden name for various reasons, some professional, until she bailed on her previous profession and didn't want to be linked to that public profile.)

The marriage license, I believe, got her a free court document that showed her name change. (It was cheaper than petitioning the court for a legal name change, and also provided the reason for it in a culturally appropriate way that brooked no possible complaint or contest.)

The SAVE Act refers to and ID issued under the documentary requirements of the RealID Act and then adds free-standing documents which are to a fairly large extent (but not entirely) a repeat of those documents.

The RealID requirements include

Where a State permits an applicant to establish a name other than the name that appears on a source document (for example, through marriage, adoption, court order, or other mechanism permitted by State law or regulation), the State shall require evidence of the name change through the presentation of documents issued by a court, governmental body or other entity as determined by the State. The State shall maintain copies of the documentation presented pursuant to § 37.31, and maintain a record of both the recorded name and the name on the source documents in a manner to be determined by the State and in conformity with § 37.31.

Note that the Ms Magazine complaint about married women (at least those that changed their name on their IDs in a non-RealID-compliant manner) also applies to various other groups of people.

More to the point is the argument that there are some states, years later, that still find re-issuing drivers licenses and other forms of ID in a RealID compliant manner to be onerous. The gripe is always that it would be too expensive and difficult to re-issue them quickly--but they've had over 20 years go do this. The other argument is that not everybody can afford (over a 20-year span?) to get a copy of their BC or other birth documents. (And even then, there are ways to avoid that barrier.)