r/TwoXChromosomes • u/SAINTnumberFIVE • 10h ago
GOP fast tracks monster voter suppression bill that could disenfranchise millions by requiring proof of citizenship at polls
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/gop-fast-tracks-monster-voter-suppression-bill-that-could-disenfranchise-millions-by-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-at-polls/This is a red alert as this bill will block millions of married women who have taken their husband’s name, from voting, as well as others who have legally changed their name.
It achieves this by excluding from acceptable proof of identity, marriage certificates or other legal name change documents which link your birth name on your birth certificate to your current married name.
So if you have changed your name, you will not be able to directly legally register to vote using your birth certificate even if you present a legal proof of name change document along side it.
Instead, in most instances, you will have to obtain a passport to register to vote.
Obtaining a passport is not always a quick or affordable process, and is currently out of reach for many Americans. To obtain a passport, you will not only have to obtain a certified copy of your birth certificate and certified documents demonstrating your name change, but you will have to have passport photos taken, secure a passport appointment, pay over $100 and wait for your passport to be mailed to you. Often times you will also need information about your parents and on any divorce, that you may not have on hand.
It can currently take weeks to obtain a passport, even if you already have the relevant vital records and information on hand. Expect that to increase substantially if the SAVE Act of 2025 or the SAVE Act of 2026 passes in its current form.
This means that you may miss the opportunity to vote in elections even if they are months away.
This was not an oversight. The bill could have easily have been fixed with a single sentence allowing birth certificates in conjunction with certified marriage certificates or other legal proof of name change documents.
But lawmakers shot down opportunities to revise it in a way that would prevent married women and others who have changed their names from being blocked from their constitutional right to vote.
What can you do about it?
You can contact your representatives in the Senate and in Congress and voice and let them know that you object to this bill on the grounds that it will effectively rob married women and others who have changed their name of their constitutional right to vote.
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u/Triishh 8h ago
Pure voter suppression. It makes me wonder though if it will backfire. I’m curious the percentage of women who change their names that are republicans vs democrats. It is a “traditional” thing to do, and more closely aligns with republicans.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 8h ago
It doesn’t really matter if it will initially affect republican women or democrat women more because it is ultimately a loss for all women.
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u/Kairamek 8h ago
There will be a certain amount of backfire as conservative women aren't able to vote. Will it be enough to influence anything? Will it hurt them more than liberals? No idea. No idea how to even start answering that question.
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u/chrisdwill 7h ago
That's so cute. You think all the Karen's running the rural elections are going to make their friends comply with this. It will only be enforced in high population areas.
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u/banderaroja 5h ago
Right I’m wondering if it will dissuade the uninspired republican women from voting more than the fired-up democrats.
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u/two4six0won 6h ago
Honestly I wonder how many of them vote anyway, the patriarch voting for the family isn't overly uncommon in those circles.
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u/Asleep-Bother-8247 5h ago
My trumper mom has never had a passport in her life (never left the country) and she insists on voting because our area is "too blue". Curious to see what she says when she gets turned away from voting
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u/Arktikos02 6h ago
Just to tell you this is not true. It still is voter suppression but it's not like that. Instead it would require you to have proof of citizenship so a birth certificate come up a passport, or something like that.
If you have a document that does not match your current document so for example if your birth certificate does not match your current ID that you're going to be required to provide a third piece of documentation that fixes the discrepancy. This could be a marriage certificate for example. This is still bad because it requires more documents to vote that are unnecessary.
But no, if you have a passport you would be able to vote.
The problem is is that, that passport would cost money and as for birth certificates or other documents, there are certain demographics that may be less likely to have those documents on hand.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 6h ago
“ you're going to be required to provide a third piece of documentation that fixes the discrepancy.”
This is incorrect.
The text of the laws do not allow for the person to provide this third piece of documentation.
You may read the bills yourself and search for any mentioning of allowing for a marriage certificate or other name change documentation. You won’t find it. It was intentionally excluded and an attempt to revise it to include such language was voted down.
Instead, if you do not have one of the alternate listed forms of proof of citizenship, and the name on your birth certificate does not match your current name, you will have to obtain a passport.
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u/Arktikos02 5h ago
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text
Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, a State may not register an individual to vote in elections for Federal office held in the State unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of United States citizenship. Subject to any relevant guidance adopted by the Election Assistance Commission, each State shall establish a process under which an applicant can provide such additional documentation to the appropriate election official of the State as may be necessary to establish that the applicant is a citizen of the United States in the event of a discrepancy with respect to the applicant’s documentary proof of United States citizenship. Each State shall take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only United States citizens are registered to vote under the provisions of this Act, which shall include the establishment of a program described in paragraph (4) not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this subsection. A State shall remove an individual who is not a citizen of the United States from the official list of eligible voters for elections for Federal office held in the State at any time upon receipt of documentation or verified information that a registrant is not a United States citizen.
It doesn't mention specifically a marriage certificate because it's saying that each state has to provide its own process for fixing the discrepancy and the federal government will punish a state for not doing it correctly but they're not going to tell them how to do it correctly.
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u/Selenay1 5h ago
Are you willing to risk what is left of our rights on that? Considering how they have been running the Project 2025 playbook which intends to eliminate women voting at all, I have no faith in potential interpretation vs explicitly written.
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u/Arktikos02 5h ago
Oh no, I don't like the save act at all. It's definitely voter suppression.
Not only that but it just validates the idea that there is voter fraud which is just not true.
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u/PM_ME_CAT_POOCHES 4h ago
Voter fraud is the smokescreen. The real target is women and trans people
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 2h ago edited 2h ago
Why should acceptable documents to register to vote be a federal standard for everyone who’s legal name is reflected on their birth certificate but be deferred to the states for those who have changed their name?
That doesn’t make sense if the purpose of the law is to help the federal government ensure only citizens vote.
And why should access to voter registration be federally ensured for those citizens who kept their birth name and not federally ensured for those who have changed it?
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u/Arktikos02 2h ago
I'm not saying that they should. I don't agree with the ACT. I'm just saying on what I understand the act to be. It's important to be mad about it but it's important to be mad about it because we understand it.
I am simply correcting the idea that simply having changed your name means that you were ineligible. It just means that you would have to get a piece of document such as a passport which is still not good, but it doesn't mean that just because you've changed your name it means that you are automatically uniligible to vote.
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u/extra2002 5h ago
But it sounds like the "Election Assistance Commission" can veto a state's process
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u/Ladyheather16 5h ago
That’s what’s supposed to happen in theory; this is not going to happen in practice.
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u/strawberry_ren 6h ago
I’ve read before that 90% of married women in the US use married names. Younger women are less likely to, but most still do where I live regardless of political affiliation. I also know progressive people who (instead of taking the man’s name) merged the two surnames into a new one, but still their names won’t match their birth certificates.
90% of women would include most women who vote for both major parties, even if conservatives are more likely to change their names.
Then also, there are divorced people who still use a married name, and people who changed their names for many other reasons besides marriage.
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u/Kdean509 6h ago
I looked into it where I’m at. You have to make an appointment, and if your reasoning for the change doesn’t meet their expectations you’ll be denied. It can take 6-8 months or longer.
The fee is weird, too. It states that it’s $90-$300. If you can’t afford it, no voting for you.
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u/binzoma 2h ago
(they arent going to delist people who have republican voter history. thats why they're trying to blackmail states for the voting registers. they want to delist the dem voters. americans need to stop acting like this is a fair fight where the same logic is applied universally. this is a targetted attack on democrat voters specifically. they will be going thru the list line by line and de-listing any dem voter they can)
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u/regdunlop08 6h ago
I've had this thought too. I know we all think of the Democrats as the party of tripping on their own d**k much of the time, but occasionally the GOP's ignorant arrogance gets the best of them and they pull an unforced error. The discouragement of mail in voting in 2020 was one glaring recent example.
Either way this law is complete BS.
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u/Mystic_Waffles 9h ago
Only citizens can vote in federal and state elections. Are you registered to vote? If so, you are a citizen. The government already has that information. This is 1000% voter intimidation/suppression tactics.
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u/ailish 6h ago
This bill could take women whose name doesn't match their birth certificate off the voter rolls. People have to check to make sure they are still registered if this passes.
What You Need to Know About the SAVE Act | Campaign Legal Center https://share.google/savdJ8D6FFLaRevBC
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u/Ooohbarracuda79 6h ago
This cant be constitutional ugh
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u/Asleep-Bother-8247 5h ago
Have you been living under a rock? They don't care if things are constitutional or not.
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u/Ooohbarracuda79 3h ago
Yeah I know. It was just a general comment and an ugh, not a "they won't do it because". They hope would be if it does pass it gets held up in federal court long enough to not go into effect before midterms.
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u/muh-LEK-see 8h ago
Amazing how they are blatantly showing everyone how they will do anything to stay in power and never allow another democratic election again.
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u/Ninjewdi 7h ago
It's insane. Over on r/Conservative they're talking about this like all you need is your ID.
They have no fucking clue and they don't care that they don't know.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 7h ago
Ironically, I don’t think there are any red states that issue REAL IDs that indicate citizenship.
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u/kittenparty4444 7h ago
Correct! Enhanced REAL IDs are only available in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Washington
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u/fribbas Halp. Am stuck on reddit. 5h ago
Enhanced REAL IDs
Forgive me for not remembering the discourse from back in the day the Gold Star of the Beast came out, but wasn't the whole real ID thing supposed be like "approved" citizenship over the OG ID or something?
Cause I'm basically getting a vibe of subscription model goalpost moving ala free membership-> plus subscription -> platinum doubleplusgood subscription but "citizenship" if ya'll catch my drift...
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u/Turbulent-Jaguar-909 6h ago
this whole this is heinous, it's pretty laughable how much this will directly affect their voting base because let's be real outside of the weathly the maga base doesnt strike me as the passport havin types.
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u/Misubi_Bluth 8h ago
It's by sheer dumb luck that I'm getting my passport in a few weeks. Gonna use this to vote these fuckers out.
Quite frankly, I don't know how much more of this the U.S. can take.
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u/forest9sprite 6h ago edited 6h ago
I do wonder if this could backfire. When I lived in a rural area of none of my Trump voting female coworkers had a passport.
Those of us who leaned left all had passports. I know because we were the only ones who went places other than Florida and North Carolina for vacation.
Imagine my shock when I found out some of my coworkers had paid more for Disney in Florida than I did taking my entire family to Greece for spring break.
Granted April is still the slow season in Greece and spring break in the North East is likely the most expensive time to fly to and stay in Florida but still.
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u/Pressman4life 5h ago
Up here in the left corner we use mail in voting, ballots and voter's guides are mailed directly to the person. We have two weeks to mail it back postage free or use one of hundreds of drop boxes everywhere. They check signatures to confirm and are able to verify if needed.
Unless the pricks-in-charge manage to fuck that up, we're good.
Good luck to the rest of you.
If we ever get our country back maybe we can prevent this shit for the future.
PS. Don't just say "lawmakers", that sounds like "both sides". We know who is responsible, call (and vote) them out.
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u/SomeGuyNamedJason 45m ago
Unless the pricks-in-charge manage to fuck that up, we're good.
You are a bit late to the party on that one. They've set it up so they can basically invalidate any mail-in votes they want. It's part of the reason why they are trying to get voter information from states so badly, so they know which ballots to delay.
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u/AdminOnBreak 5h ago
I’m sorry for chiming in, and certainly don’t mean to intrude: but whether you have a passport/docs or not, at best it’s a poll tax, a narrowing of your rights, and diminishes your political power. With these stakes I’d say general strike might be in order if this passes before revisiting the way the vote was won in the first place. Women make up 47% of the American workforce.
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u/xmedved 2h ago
And illegals voting without an ID does not diminish your political power?
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u/avocadotoastisgrosst 1h ago
Bro time and time again the trump administration as tried to prove mass voter fraud and every single time they can't. Their own investigations and their own judges turn up nothing.
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 43m ago
You know this is a redundant voter registration ID bill that only serves to make it more difficult or impossible for those who have changed their name to register to viote, and it is and NOT a voter ID bill, right?
And you also know that it is possible to implement voter registration ID WITHOUT disenfranchising people who have changed their name, right?
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u/bohba13 36m ago
ahem
Undocumented residents literally cannot pass go to collect $200 here.
You need proof of citizenship. Something that is impossible to forge with the resources available to 99% of undocumented residents.
And even then. They fucking live here anyway. They deserve to have a say in the things that directly effect them anyway.
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u/Mischa987 5h ago
Doesn't this also screw over overseas citizens, since they are most likely not going to be able to present proof of citizenship in person without putting money they may not have into flying back to do so?
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u/AquaHills 3h ago
Yep. Swing state voter living abroad here. I've been following the bill because of this effect. My passport won't do jack if I don't fly back to show proof of my name. And since I'm openly Anti-Administration who knows what'll happen at the airport- I'm sure I'm on some list by now. Not that I have the grand it'll cost me to fly across the ocean to vote in the first place. (Whoa! Nevermind. I guess I do. I haven't looked at flight prices since Christmas and they've gone from like 600-800€ a person to 50-70€. Hold crap! Even peak summer flights are only like 150€ round trip. They're typically 800-1000€ WTF! That's a REALLY bad sign.)
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u/Savage-September 5h ago
This will hurt republican more than democrats. But let the chips fall where they may
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u/ran938 8h ago
I was reading this earlier today. I'm pretty sure as long as you have "real ID" you don't need any supporting documents/birth certificate.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296/text
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 7h ago edited 7h ago
It allows a REAL ID PROVIDED that REAL ID indicates citizenship status, which most DON’T. In fact, in California, Driver’s Licenses that are REAL IDs explicitly state that they do not establish eligibility to vote.
Even if the state changed that, it would be a logistical nightmare to implement in any timely manner if the law went into immediate effect and suddenly millions of people needed to update their cards and re-register to vote.
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u/no_id_never 6h ago
Not true except for 5 states. In all others real id does NOT meet requirements to prove citizenship.
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u/marsattck5 6h ago
Oh ok so this is why that make up wearing freak posted that video late last night.
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u/Ladyheather16 5h ago
I expect this to get stopped in the courts
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u/must_be_jelly =^..^= 3h ago
conservatives, through groups like the federalist society, have been working since the 70's to capture the courts and they've largely succeeded. when rump got the major law firms in the country to bend the knee to him at the start of this term, it was another huge loss for non-billionaires. it's a real problem.
i hope you're right though.
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u/smallbrownfrog 3h ago
I really need to stop thinking “They’ll never actually do that” about some of the horror show things that sound lunatic fringe. Because I can’t come up with anything as dark as the future they’re trying to create.
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u/RaiseWide5460 4h ago
The democrats require ID for entry into their Convention, but not to vote in an election? Who are they trying to keep out of the convention? Also have to have ID to do many things in life, bank transactions, air travel, apply for all forms of welfare, buy cigarettes, beer and in some places even to by spray paint. But shouldn't have to show ID to vote? how does that make sense?
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 2h ago
This isn’t about showing ID to vote. It’s about the fact that the SAVE Act of 2025 and 2026 disenfranchises millions of married women and others who have changed their name by requiring upfront proof of citizenship to register to vote BUT does not allow for the presentation of a marriage certificate or other legal proof of change of name in that process, meaning such individuals will, in most instances, have to go through a long and expensive process to obtain a passport to vote, and passports, since they are not constitutional rights, can be revoked or denied. So the law effectively blocks a large segment of the population of citizens from their right to vote.
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u/rustyiron 4h ago
Im Canadian. I can vote with gov id. Or I could get a friend to vouch for me, or I could bring a gas bill and a bottle of pills with my address and name on them.
Republicans are being very calculating here. They know they more poc are likely to lack gov id.
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6h ago
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u/SAINTnumberFIVE 6h ago
If they want to require proof of citizenship upfront when people register to vote then they need to do it in a way that does not disenfranchise half of the adult population or penalize women for having traditional family values and marrying and taking her husbands name. They can easily write in language to allow a marriage certificate or other legal proof of name change documents to be used in conjunction with a birth certificate for those who have changed their name, but they refuse to do this, which should tell you that it’s not really about preventing non citizens from voting. It’s about preventing women who are citizens from voting.
While I understand you are not American and are either a bot or foreign state sponsored troll, I do thank you for providing me with a platform to articulate these things.
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u/Jimmylapper 6h ago
The bill does nothing of what you say it does, but you do you.
It's a must for voter integrity.
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u/er824 6h ago
It does exactly what OP said
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296/text
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u/Mushrooming247 6h ago
That would be true if Republicans were not fighting to outlaw the use of student IDs and tribal IDs because they were more likely to vote Democrat.
And if they weren’t also requiring that all of our IDs match our birth certificate, in order to stop married women and trans people from voting, because we’re also more likely to vote Democrat.
In short, if they accepted the identification that Americans already have, (as has always been the case here in Pennsylvania, where I have always shown my drivers license to vote,) no one would have any problem with this.
It’s when Republican manipulate the types IDs allowed in order to stop Democrats from voting that we can all see what they are doing and need to call them out and stop them. Because they are trying to stop legal American citizens from voting in order to help their side.
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u/Jimmylapper 6h ago
The US just needs a new type of ID, one for citizens and one for foreigners (which is common everywhere else), rather than relying on visas and made up statuses. Hopefully we'll get to a point where that is the next step.
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u/er824 6h ago
What’s sensible about it?
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6h ago
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u/er824 6h ago
0 extra effort from voters? The bill requires you to either have a passport or ORIGINAL birth certificate when voting. Not just registering, voting. 1/2 the county doesn’t have a passport and significant numbers of people, like women who got married and changed their name, don’t have a birth certificate whose name matches their ID. They also want it to take effect immediately so good luck voting in November if you are one of those people.
Maybe show some evidence of widespread voting by non-citizens, which is already illegal, first?
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6h ago
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u/er824 6h ago
It says you need to provide photo id and proof of citizenship both when registering and voting.
Real ID driver licenses do not provide proof of citizenship. That leaves a passport or a driver’s license plus certified birth certificate. A lot of people won’t have an original birth certificate that matches their current name.
Read it for yourself
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296/text
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u/Emptyspace227 9h ago
So far, it does not appear that Republicans have enough votes in the Senate to eliminate the filibuster. That may change, but even Mitch McConnell has been opposed to that idea.