The SAVE Act passed the House on Feb. 11, 2026 by a vote of 218-213 and is now in the Senate awaiting a vote. Voting is expected to take place next week, according to Thune. If and when it passes the Senate, it will go to the president for a final signature.
Will SAVE Act Prevent Married Women from Registering to Vote?
Posted on February 28, 2025
Q: Is it true that under the SAVE Act married women will not be able to register to vote if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate?
A: The proposed SAVE Act instructs states to establish a process for people whose legal name doesn’t match their birth certificate to provide additional documents. But voting rights advocates say that married women and others who have changed their names may face difficulty when registering because of the ambiguity in the bill over what documents may be accepted.
If I’m not married can I vote twice?
So we’re all getting two last names like Christian people of other countries? Because this is how you get two last names.
Fascism
Every day that passes, I hate these people more and more.
why would a married name match a birth certificate name? or are they saying they only marry relatives? do women change birth certs when married? I am not a woman.
but funny story i adoped my stepson after his mom died. he was 14 or so. he was issued a new birth certificate and the “mother” area is … blank.
When you’re married, you give up your voting privileges. Your husband will vote for you. Oh, he only gets one vote of course.
Also, if you’re not married, you’ve clearly shown that you’re not mature enough to vote. A public servant will be designated to vote on your behalf.
Does that mean Alabama women are safe?
Won’t matter when he cancels elections cause we are in multiple wars.
Does SAVE require documentary proof of citizenship to vote, or just to register? As I understand it, documentary proof of citizenship is the specific requirement that’s hard for anyone who has had a change of name to meet short of a passport or an EDL in the 5 states that offer one.
Basically it changes the types of id that are accepted at voting booths.
When you vote you already have to have registered with appropriate ID to be counted federally. When you show up at the poll this act will change so that only federally issued ID types will be valid. Birth certificates are the most common but if your current name is different than what you were born with for any reason it won’t count.
Of these federal id types most of them are opt in varieties and as such are actually more expensive types of specific ID like passports and “REAL ID”. A regular old drivers licence as issued by your state won’t be good enough anymore even though your name and listed address were verified by the state and already match the name on the voter registration.
Since these id types are more expensive it can make voting the preserve of those who can afford the time and extra money making it a way to disenfranchise economically disadvantaged voters of all stripes .
The states I’ve lived in have entirely phased out non-REAL ID cards. You also can’t fly without a REAL ID now. They’re not some expensive alternate variety you have to opt-in to.
SAVE calls for “documentary proof of United States citizenship”, which it defines in the act itself. A RealID that also verifies citizenship counts (normal RealID doesn’t, and only 5 states that offer an “enhanced driver’s license” do), so does a passport, a military ID combined with a record of service indicating you were born in the US, a federal, state, or tribal photo ID showing your place of birth was in the US or a federal, state or tribal photo ID combined with a birth or naturalization record.
Most people will fall in that last category. And most valid birth records explicitly require the record be of the same name. The big question I’m not sure of is if in all the small changes amended to the law by SAVE if documentary proof of United States Citizenship is required to vote or merely to register.
We are also just ignoring the fact that this is all blatantly unconstitutional. At least I’m pretty sure it is but IANAL but apparently knowing or caring about the law and our system of government is not a requirement for anyone in this admin so I feel equally qualified as the idiots voting for this shit.
I mean yeah, it’s almost certainly unconstitutional under 24A. But theat requires a SCOTUs who cares about the law and the constitution instead of putting Heritage first, Trump second and all that other stuff a distant third.
Proof of citizenship is already required to register, bringing proof to the voting booth is the extra hurdle this act brings.
You can change your name with the
IRSSSA. That should be more than sufficient proof.What does the IRS have to do with anything? Read the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text
Section 2(b) is the relevant bit regarding what counts as documentary proof of US citizenship.
The
IRSSSA is a federal agency that you provide documentation to for a name change. Most places won’t hire you without doing this.The fact that you’ve changed your name and the corroborating documentation is already in the federal government’s possession.
But that’s not proof of citizenship, which is what the bill requires.
I realize now that I said IRS instead of SSA.
To change your name with the SSA you have to have an established proof of citizenship or immigration status, or provide the supporting documents.
Again, read SAVE instead of making assumptions based on practices of other agencies that are tangentially related.
The Handmaiden’s Tale has this subplot of a woman regretting of proverbially blowing the misogynists.
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Why on earth is a birth certificate used at all for identification?
Here is a list of allowed document for a similar problem, for employment. Note that it categorizes the possibilities as ID, citizenship, and work authorization, and you may need one each from multiple groups. For example you might use a drivers license as ID and a certified birth certificate as proof of citizenship
It’s not quite the same since this allows identifying as from another country and with a valid work authorization, which do not apply to voting, but very similar
Obviously I’m not saying this is appropriate to mandate for voting but if we were, this is a well thought out answer to that sort of question.
It doesn’t address the voter suppression concern though
No reason to use the I9 instead of the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text
That’s the version that passed the house. And the relevant bit is near the top, section 2(b).
Is no one going to point out that it establishes requirements for birth certificates? If a state doesn’t already comply with all of those, are we going to have to be reborn?
You’ll have to get a passport or move to one of the 5 states with an enhanced driver’s license that meets the requirements under section 2(b)(1).
It’s proof of citizenship. But also, here it’s a convenient and plausibly deniable way to disenfranchise people who vote differently than them.
Yeah I’m guessing even most MAGA voters don’t have a birth certificate handy, and certainly don’t have passports. This just disenfranchises MOST Americans.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
The enforcement will be extremely selective. We’re talking about Republicans here. They’re not subtle about ignoring the constitution.
“Ignoring the constitution” is the bedrock of our political parties.
For example the “powers not enumerated in the constitution rest with the people” bits. There’s no limit to powers today, they do what they want.
To further your point, this is about registering to vote, not voting. People already registered grandfather in. Just like the literacy treats that white folks also wouldn’t pass, but it was only about the newly allowed black voters.
Don’t forget there are various reasons you might get disenrolled and have to register again.
Including excessive “cleaning” the registration list, for districts which have too many non-Republican voters
And also the source of the term “grandfathered in”.
The law was typically along the lines of “literacy test or your grandfather could vote”.
Yeah, but that seems like a really dumb and not-all-encompassing proof of citizenship. That’s why I asked. The 2nd part of your reaction makes sense and very likely accurate, but probably not the official reason right? Like, what is their public excuse for using it as proof of citizenship?
What do you use?
A passport or national ID
Less than half of Americans have a passport, and that’s the only form of national ID we have. We have 50 different state IDs, but iirc only 3 of them show proof of citizenship.
Americans doesn’t necessarily have those.
Like if you don’t leave the US (like a lot of Americans don’t) you don’t have a incentive to keep your passport up to date.
Everyone in Europe has Passports, because you need it so much more.
Everyone in America have a birth certificate
Everyone in America have a birth certificate
Probably not if you’re an immigrant right? Legal or not.
I’m trying to say that a birth certificate doesn’t make much sense as a form of proof of citizenship, since it doesn’t accurately reflect immigrants and, apparently, marital status
You don’t become a legal immigrant in the us without presenting your birth certificate I think
MAGA women usually are still using their first husbands last name so it’ll suck for them too
“My husband votes conservative for the both of us. A woman’s place is serving God and her husband, not having a right to an opinion.”
-Conservative women, probably
Some of them, for sure.
Seems to me that if your birth name and married name match, this will disproportionately favor people who marry their siblings or other relatives. I wonder what political leaning that particular segment has 🤔
while i get the joke, i just want to make sure it’s clear to anyone coming across this understnds that women who elect to change their name in the merital tradition of erasure are more likely to be conservative, and the women who have the documents to prove their identity (like a passport) are more likely to be progressive.
all that said, the focus on how this will impact women, specifically, is frustrating because it’s ignoring the biggest groups of people who will be impacted: immigrants and working poor people. we shouldn’t tolerate the disenfranchisement of ~30% of women, so we are clear, but we are positioned to disenfranchise ~80% of immigrants and working poor and no one is talking about it. these are people who are less likely to have ANY of the acceptable documents proposed in the SAVE act.
for context, people experiencing poverty are far less likely to be born in a hospital and have a birth certificate, usually depending on a baptism certificate to establish their government name. meanwhile, immigrants may have a passport, but if it’s expired that’s unacceptable, and a lot of the nations around the world that issued the birth certificates being required by this law in place of a passport can no longer certify birth certificates simply because they aren’t existing anymore. i have multiple friends who can’t get their birth certificates right now because that would put them at risk of government retribution because they are asylum seekers. for example, my siberian neighbor isn’t going to be getting in touch with the Russian government any time soon.
so in conclusion. the aim is to disenfranchise women and minorities. the majority of the women disenfranchised will be conservative. however, the majority of people disenfranchised will be progressive.
and that’s no accident.
people experiencing poverty are far less likely to be born in a hospital and have a birth certificate
For example my teen just needed his birth certificate for a new job and we somehow misplaced it. Getting an expedited replacement took almost two weeks and cost $80.
Even allowing for hospital birth and existing records, misplacing documents is all too easy and could easily become an obstacle to voting. If I’m struggling to make ends meet, no way in hell am I willing to pay $80 to vote and I wouldn’t have thought of it two weeks ahead of time
yup. didn’t even want to get into duplicate records. but yeah, that’s another way this quietly targets working poor people. it disgusts me that 85% of this country supports racist voter ID laws, and that the republicans are using that to fabricate a mandate for even more draconian measures
Or it will disqualify a lot of married women who took their partner’s name
Unmarried women and women who keep their last name will have less trouble voting… and people whose names differ and are aware of the change, are more likely to go through the bullshit to make sure they’re registered. Maybe it’ll prevent a bunch of Magats from being able to vote
It’s utterly disgusting either way. Hope it backfires, they lose, and they’re persecuted. A kid can dream
The logic in my joke is severely flawed, and intentionally so; contrary to popular belief, it’s actually quite difficult to marry a close blood relative, even south of the Mason-Dixon line, which is why most conservatives prefer cohabitation.
20-30% of women keep their maiden name after marriage.
Liberal women are roughly twice as likely as conservative women to keep their maiden name.
So yeah, conservative women screwing themselves and also handing a minor edge to liberal women.
If I’m understanding this correctly, passports are also a valid form of citizenship. Passports are usually held by people who lean left, so this could be another advantage the left has in this insane proposition.
I hope passports will remain good enough. I was born to irresponsible teenagers and was legally adopted by one parent, and none of them gave me a copy of my birth certificate. I’m starting to worry that it would be worth tracking it down so I’ll have a copy just in case.
This is all so insane, getting our papers in order in case we need to show them to avoid getting disappeared.
Yes but who is going to be enforcing this? Where specifically are they going to be enforcing this?
Because it ain’t gonna be Bumfuck, Alabama who has gone red since the Civil War.
That’s true. Odds are if implemented they’ll harass people in Minneapolis before they do Ft. Smith, AR.
It’s not like it’s impossible for such people to vote, but getting your documents in order costs money.
Same for voting on a weekday, voting offices being only in affluent neighbourhoods, voting demanding an ID …No money, no democracy.
It also takes weeks or months to get official documents in order.
Don’t worry. They’ll have clear instructions on how to vote posted on the wall of the voting precinct on Tuesdays between 12 and 12:30 starting 15 days before the election.
Reminds me of:
Florida to experiment with new 600-lever voting machine - The Onion (YouTube video)
Yes, time too.
