The Center for American Progress has set up a link for concerned citizens to contact their members of Congress and urge opposition to the SAVE Act.
By Alexander J Schorr
Photo: Suffragists outside White House in 1917 urged that women be granted right to vote, which was approved with passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920
February 22, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – The19th Amendment guarantees women in the U.S. the right to vote. But H.R. 22, the ironically named “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE), Act is actually poised to take away that right for millions of married women, as well as anyone else whose current name does not match the name on their birth certificate. Potentially, hundreds of millions of voters could become disenfranchised if the Save Act becomes law.
Currently, House majority Republicans are fast-tracking the Save Act, which was originally introduced in 2024 and has been brought back in the 119th Congress by Representative Chip Roy, on a pretext of making sure undocumented immigrants don't vote. But if enacted, it would force every single American citizen to prove their citizenship status in person when registering to vote.This “show-your-papers” bill would require proof of citizenship once more even for those who have already registered, or wish to update their voting information, such as when moving or changing parties.
For the majority of Americans, this means having to present a passport or birth certificate at their local election office. But if you don’t have a passport, or the name on your passport or other ID does not match the name on your birth certificate, you would not be allowed to vote.The Save Act would disenfranchise 146 million Americans who do not have a passport and nearly 70 million women who are married do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name, according to PolitiFact.
Working-class and low-income Americans would also be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill becomes law, as the vast majority of these groups do not have a passport. As of October of 2024, only 51% of Americans had a passport, according to USA Today. Additionally, the U.S. Department of State stated that in fact about only half of American citizens possess only a passport (American Progress).
Nationwide, approximately 146 million Americans do not possess a passport (League of Women Voters); to put that number into perspective, 153 million Americans cast a ballot in the 2024 Presidential General Election ((American Progress). According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning voting rights advocacy group, more than 21 million Americans, or 9% of eligible voters, do not have access to citizenship documents like passports or driver’s licenses according to survey data.
Elections are run at the state level, with each individual state deciding its requirements for registration and voting; this illustrates unconstitutional federal overreach and a violation of privacy.
Critics have also said that the bill would make it difficult for a person who takes a spouse’s last name after marriage-- overwhelmingly women -- to register to vote. If someone lacks a passport with a current name, providing documents with the correct name would be more difficult, especially if an individual’s former name on their license or birth certificate was different when or if they lived in another state than the state in which they currently live.
In seven states, less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport: West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Only in four states, New York, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey, are more than two-thirds of citizens in possession of a valid passport. In West Virginia, the state with the lowest rate of passport possession, only about 1 in 5 citizens, or rather 20.7%, possess this documentation. New Jersey has the highest rate of citizen passport possession: 4 in 5 citizens, or 80%, possessing a valid passport. In general, higher volumes of passport ownership are predominantly centered in blue states, while lower rates of passport ownership are overwhelmingly concentrated in red states (Swift Passport Services).
Under the Save Act, it would disproportionately make it more difficult for American citizens in red states to present one or more of the primary forms of citizenship documentation: a birth certificate, driver’s license, certain REAL IDs, or a passport, to be able to register or re-register to vote.
Transgender people could also lose their right to vote. As of February of 2025, passports will only be marked matching the individual's assigned biological sex at birth. The American Medical Association supports policies that “allow for a sex designation or change of designation on all government IDs to reflect an individual’s gender identity, as reported by the individual.” Designating sex as either male or female regardless of current biological or social expression only fails to factor in “the medical spectrum of gender identity,” risking the marginalization of individuals with distinct individual self expression, the organization says. Those of the LGBTQ+ community will also be discriminated against because of The Trump Administration's forcing of assigned gender names at birth and marital status (TravelState).
The measure could also disenfranchise Native Americans who rely on tribal IDs, Native News online reports. Voting rights could also be stripped from anyone who does not have a copy of their birth certificate, such as people whose records were lost in a disaster, home births, or naturalized citizens born overseas.
It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in elections— yet the act would institutionally place roll purges on ordinary American citizens, making it even more difficult and inconvenient for eligible voters to register and vote. The bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant displays documentary proof of US citizenship. “Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in federal elections unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S citizenship, and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process under which an applicant may submit other evidence to demonstrate U.S citizenship” (CONGRESS.GOV).
The documentation goes on to say that “each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S citizens using information supplied by a specific source.” And furthermore, “the bill requires states to remove non-citizens from their official lists of eligible voters.” And lastly, the bill “allows for a private right of action against an election official who registered an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship… (including) criminal penalties for certain offenses” for those who fail to present evidence of citizenship. The Election Assistance Commission has required, under the bill, and within 10 days, to adopt and “transmit guidance” for implementing the bill’s requirements to chief state election officials.
The bill would ultimately upend longstanding methods of voter registration for all voters, including registration by mail, voter registration drives, online voter registration and automatic voter registration. The bill functionally eliminates mail registration by requiring voters registering by mail to produce citizenship documents in person to an election official before the deadline; the bill does not acknowledge or consider copies or electronic records of citizenship documents, severely halting automatic voter registration, as many of those transactions do not occur in person while someone has citizenship documents with them. Additionally, address changes could be impacted too; instead of registration being automatically updated when an individual changes their driver’s license online, they will have to bring their passport or birth certificate to an election agency office to update voter registration.
The bill, a priority of House Republicans, would require people registering to vote or update their registrations to use certain documents including military IDs and enhanced IDs displaying citizenship, birth certificate or passports to prove citizenship. For people who lack passports, any mismatch between their birth certificates and IDs would present problems with registration, which was elaborated on by Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center, stating that such mismatches are common for people who change their names following marriage (Brennan Center).
A Pew research survey found that 79% of married women in opposite-sex marriage took their spouses last names, with about 5% of men having changed their last names after marriage. For same-sex marriages, Pew said that the sample was too small to measure (Pew Research).
In a statement provided by Representative Roy’s office, Cleta Mitchell, the founder of Only Citizens Vote Coalition, a lawyer and former Oklahoma state representative, who pushed conspiracy theories of voter fraud and worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, said that women regularly have to provide birth certificates and marriage licenses in order to change their names for social security documents, bank accounts, and other documents. She acknowledged that the process “is a pain,” and that “millions of women do it every day.”
The bill requires states to have a process to address discrepancies, yet the bill does not express how this is to be done. Additionally, a person who registers an application to vote without proof of citizenship may be subject to a fine of indeterminate amount as well as a sentence of five years in prison.
Lastly, Americans who have completed less education as well as Americans with lower incomes are far less likely to have a passport than Americans with higher levels of education or higher income levels. Among Americans whose highest level of education is a high school degree or less, approximately 1 in 4 have a valid passport; among Americans with a household income below $50,000, only 1 in 5 have a passport (Center For American Progress.)
The Policies in The Save Act are a serious socio-economic issue that would disproportionately impact the voting rights of working-class and lower-income Americans.