How The SAVE Act Would Roll Back Voting Rights

What is the SAVE Act and why we cannot allow it to become law

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A protester outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. decries a new voting reform bill, the SAVE Act. The bill’s backers say it will prevent noncitizens from voting in elections. Photo via AP/Paul Weaver/Sipa USA)

What Is the Save Act?

My wife Ayesha grew up in Pakistan and did her Masters in the United Kingdom. When we got married nearly 18 years ago, I asked if she would take on my last name?

She paused, looked at me, and said, “Why would I give up my father’s name?? Wait, do women in America seriously change their entire identity when they get married? What happens if they get divorced? What about passports and ID cards? Social security cards? Tax documents? What about Driver’s Lic—“

“Ok, Ok I get the point!” I finally responded. “Sheesh. A simple no would’ve sufficed!”

Anyway, like with most everything—she was right—likely more than even she realized at that time. And unless we act quickly to stop the SAVE Act, tens of millions of women in America will suffer a historic level of voter suppression.

In April, the House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. Per The Brennan Center for Justice, “The SAVE Act would put voting out of reach for millions of American citizens. More than 21 million American citizens don’t have the documents required by the SAVE Act readily available. The bill would effectively eliminate forms of voter registration that millions of voters rely on: registering by mail, online, and through voter registration drives would no longer be possible.”

The SAVE Act, fueled by conspiratorial claims of voter fraud by non-citizens, would require Americans to provide documentation proving their citizenship in order to register to vote. The bill is written to prevent non-citizens from voting in our elections, despite there being no actual evidence of this happening. The SAVE Act would impose a wholly unnecessary proof of citizenship for voter registration. This means that millions of Americans who currently use their driver’s licenses or state IDs to register wouldn’t be able to.

We’ve used these same documents for decades to vote, but under this bill, they’re suddenly not good enough. This change disproportionately impacts already marginalized groups and creates yet another barrier to the ballot box. Who pays for the additional documentation? What if someone cannot afford it, or get travel or time off work to go to a government office to procure it? The SAVE Act doesn’t care.

The SAVE Act has, unfortunately, already passed the House. If passed by the Senate and signed into law by the president, it would be the greatest rollback to voting rights in America since Jim Crow. The law would be particularly harmful for women – as many drop their maiden name and take their husband’s name upon marriage, meaning their legal names no longer match what’s on their birth certificate.

Who Does The SAVE Act Harm?

While the SAVE Act punishes a wide array of otherwise eligible voting U.S. Citizens, it harms women in particular because of the western practice of women taking on their husband’s names after marriage. As NPR reports:

Among the most notable changes outlined in the bill is the requirement to prove U.S. citizenship before registering to vote. Acceptable documents will include a birth certificate, U.S. passport, naturalization paperwork and certain versions of the Real ID that indicate citizenship. But for as many as 69 million American women who have taken on their spouse’s name, their birth certificates no longer match the names they use today, according to an analysis by the progressive Center for American Progress. Meanwhile, more than half of all Americans do not have a passport, according to a 2023 YouGov survey.

The SAVE Act also attacks other groups who cannot immediately prove citizenship. For example, Tribal IDs, Veteran IDs, and Military IDs will all become useless if they don’t explicitly prove citizenship. This is in addition to the systemic voter suppression already imposed upon Native Americans. But that is not the only way the the SAVE Act punishes servicemembers: the law would force those deployed abroad to come home just to register to vote in person. That’s right. Supporters of the SAVE Act want soldiers stationed overseas to abandon their posts just to jump through bureaucratic hoops to reregister to do what they’re already registered to do securely. Obviously, the hundreds of thousands of American troops stationed overseas will have no ability to return home just to update their voter registration, and thus will not be able to vote. This is once again de facto voter suppression.

Let’s be clear—noncitizen voting is already illegal. There are already strong protections in place to prevent it, and no evidence exists to indicate any form of breach. A Washington Post and AP study found over the last 50 years no examples of systemic voter fraud, and no examples of voter fraud that could have even remotely overturned any State or Federal election.

All this follows the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 in Shelby v. Holder, which has resulted in red states closing more than 10,000 polling locations in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. The bottom line is this. If your idea of democracy is to decrease citizen access to the ballot box — it isn’t democracy you believe in. The SAVE Act brings America one step closer to establishing Jim Crow.

How Do We Stop This From Happening?

The good news? We can stop it.

1. Call your senators and tell them to vote against the SAVE Act and stand up for voting rights:

2. Share this article to inform your friends and family about the risks the SAVE Act poses for our voting rights

3. Subscribe to Feel Good Action for weekly calls to action to defend our democracy and protect every American’s right to vote!