SAVE Act
SAVE Act
What?
The House version of the SAVE Act, H.R. 22, which Republicans have pledged to put on a fast track to approval, carries this innocuous sounding summary: “To amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of United States citizenship to register an individual to vote in elections for Federal office, and for other purposes.” It has 81 sponsors. They are all Republicans. You can read the full text of the bill here.
Who cares?
Any woman who has changed her name, even if simply through marriage to take her partner's last name, is at risk of losing her ability to register to vote. People who do not have proper doccumentation even as citizens. Mail in voters especially those who are only able to use this method.
But what are the pros?
Supporters say this will prevent residents who have entered "illegally" from voting in elections, despite there being sufficient evidence that this is happening. Additionally, the law already states noncitizens are ineligible to vote and require information like a social security number to register. This title is clearly rhetorical. The bill’s pretend mechanism to permit voters who lack citizenship documents to register is a farce. The bill purports to let them demonstrate citizenship with “other evidence” and a sworn affidavit. But that provision is vague, and because the bill also makes it a crime for election officials to register an applicant who doesn’t present sufficient proof, it’s easy to see how meaningless that provision is.
What about the cons?
- 69 million women in America who have taken their spouse's name will have issues confirming their identity.
- To register to vote, re-register, or make a change of address, people would have to provide a birth certificate, passport, or one of a few other proof-of-citizenship documents. This will require extra spending for women to register to vote including paying for passports, copies of marriage certificates, or other administrate costs.
- The bill is so ambiguous that it doesn't clarify if and how marriage certificates will be counted as official doccuments. It will vary state by state.
- Overnight it would end online and mail-in voter registration. Registering to vote by mail and online would no longer be possible because voters must show their citizenship documents “in person” to register. Large registration drives at churches and PTA meetings would become difficult, if not impossible, to conduct.
These might all seem like trivial costs, but they all add up. There is also time delays and administrative inconvenience and burden at each step that creates more obstacles and discouragement to voting.
- Tracy Thomas, University of Akron constituional law profesor
Couldn't they make an ammedment to provide an exception for this specific case for women?
They could...and the fact that the bill doesn't address this should be answer enough.
Sources
- Original Filing of H.R. 8281 during 118th US Congress
- H.R. 22
- Married Women Could Be Stopped From Voting Under SAVE Act
- Will the SAVE Act make it harder for married women to vote? We ask legal experts
- Fair Vote
- The SAVE Act, Which Could Stop Millions of Women From Voting, Just Passed in the House
- Rep. Garcia ‘The SAVE Act... is all about Donald Trump & House GOP making it more difficult to vote