The SAVE Act Will End Voting Rights for Women in America

The SAVE Act has passed the House—we cannot let it pass the Senate

On February 11, MAGA Republicans in the House passed the deceptively named SAVE Act. I warned about this ludicrous piece of legislation when MAGAs first introduced it in 2024, even though it had no chance of becoming law under Joe Biden. Now, under Trump, the SAVE Act has passed the House. If it passes the Senate, it will become law, and gut voting rights for tens of millions of women, and even more minorities in the United States.

What is the SAVE Act, and more importantly, how can we stop it from becoming law?

Let’s Address This.

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 two decades ago, I asked if she would take on my last name.

Her reply: “Why? 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 then realized. And unless we act quickly to stop the SAVE Act, tens of millions of women in America, and minorities, will suffer a historic level of voter suppression.

On February 11 the U.S. 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.

While American citizens have used these same documents for decades to vote without any case of mass or systemic voter or election fraud, under the SAVE Act they’re suddenly not good enough. Unsurprisingly, this change will disproportionately harm already marginalized groups. It will create 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. And that’s the point.

Who Does The SAVE Act Harm?

The list is long of who the SAVE Act harms. If the SAVE Act passes the Senate, Donald Trump will sign into law. It would then be the greatest rollback to voting rights in the United States since Jim Crow. While the SAVE Act punishes a wide array of otherwise eligible voting U.S. citizens, it harms women in particular because of the aforementioned western practice of women taking on their husband’s names after marriage. And because their legal names no longer match what’s on their birth certificate, the SAVE Act would bar them from voting under the absurd and nonsensical claim of voter fraud. 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.

A simple glance at Presidential election results demonstrates why Donald Trump and Republicans are so adamant to restrict voting access for women. As Rutgers University reports:

Women were more likely than men to support Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz within and across every race/ethnic, age, and education group reported in the available data.

And 2024 was not an anomaly. Going back to at least 1992, women have voted blue over red by 4 to 13 points in every single Presidential election. Thus, from the Republican point of view, the best way to win future elections is not to appeal to women voters to earn their vote, but to repeal women’s right to vote.

SAVE Act Also Harms Minorities and Veterans

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.

Moreover, this bill 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.

A Solution In Search Of A Problem

Republicans claim the SAVE Act will prevent non-citizens from voting. This is a farce. Let’s be clear—non-citizen voting is already illegal. There are already strong protections in place to prevent it, and no evidence exists to indicate any form of breach. In fact, 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 100,000 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, it’s dictatorship. The SAVE Act brings America one step closer to re-establishing Jim Crow levels of extremism. We cannot allow this to happen.

How Do We Stop This From Happening?

The good news? We can still stop it—but we must act immediately.

1. Call your senators and tell them to vote against the SAVE Act and stand up for voting rights. Whether your Senator is Democratic or Republican, they need to hear from you. The Senate switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. Ask to be connected to your Senator’s office. When someone answers, use this script:

   Hello, my name is [YOUR NAME], and I’m a constituent from [YOUR STATE].

   I’m calling to urge Senator [YOUR SENATOR] to vote NO on the SAVE Act.

   This bill is unnecessary, unconstitutional, and a direct attack on voting rights—especially for women, veterans, Tribal communities, and working families.

   Non-citizen voting is already illegal, and there is no evidence of systemic voter fraud that justifies imposing new barriers to the ballot box. The SAVE Act will disenfranchise tens of millions of eligible voters, including women whose married names do not match their birth certificates and Americans who do not have immediate access to passports or other documentation.

   I expect the Senator to defend the right to vote, not restrict it. Please vote NO on the SAVE Act and publicly oppose this attempt at voter suppression.

   Thank you.

   Be polite (not too polite). Be firm. And make sure they log your call. Offices track constituent contacts closely—especially when volume spikes.

2. Share this article to inform your friends and family about the risks the SAVE Act poses for our voting rights. Make sure everyone you know is calling their Senators.

A Final Word — And A Request

I have been sounding the alarm on the SAVE Act for nearly two years. I warned about it when it was first introduced in 2024, when corporate media dismissed it as fringe or irrelevant because Biden was in office and it “had no path forward.” Now it has passed the House and is one Senate vote away from becoming law.

The silence from major outlets has been deafening. While they chase daily headlines and manufactured outrage, bills like this quietly advance toward dismantling fundamental rights. Independent voices have had to do the work of explaining what this legislation actually does and who it harms.

That is why Let’s Address This exists.

If this analysis is helpful to you—if you value having someone track these bills before they become crises—I need your support. This is a reader-supported publication. Subscribing ensures I can continue researching, writing, and raising awareness on legislation that threatens our democracy long before it becomes a breaking news segment.

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Democracy does not erode all at once. It erodes when bad bills pass quietly because too few people knew what was happening.

Now you know.

Let’s act accordingly.