SAVE Act

[PAL]

Listen up women. Maybe not here with mail in voting but all over the country, if passed means women voting is in jeopardy.

Carlyn Beccia
You have to admire Republicans’ creative labeling. The latest is a doozy. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE Act) is here to “save” democracy. And by “save,” they mean saving it for husbands and not their wives, exactly as Project 2025 intended.
The SAVE Act is a proposed law that changes the required proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections. Here’s the problem: The Act demands documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) before you can register to vote. And what counts as proof? A passport (which many Americans don’t have), a military ID with service records (because obviously, everyone has that lying around), or a birth certificate (but only if it matches your current legal name).
And that’s where married women get thrown under the election bus.
If you changed your last name when you married, your birth certificate still has your maiden name. This means — according to this law — you won’t exist as a voter unless you can prove that the woman born as Jane Maidenname and the woman trying to register as Jane Marriedname are the same person. A marriage certificate? Not good enough because it’s not on the list of acceptable documents.
And don’t even think about using your driver’s license or REAL ID. Unless it explicitly lists U.S. citizenship (most don’t), that won’t work either. Basically, if you don’t have the correct paperwork, tough luck, girl. Go back to nineteenth-century America and do not pass Go.
If this Act becomes law, the National Organization for Women estimates that 34% of female voters could be turned away at the polls for incorrect paperwork. And most of them won’t know it until it’s too late.
Of course, Republicans are pitching it as a way to prevent noncitizens from voting. Back in 2021, Trump claimed that 36,000 ballots “were illegally cast by noncitizens” in Arizona. Musk stoked these fears again during the 2024 election by accusing Democrats of “The goal all along has been to import as many illegal voters as possible.” Pleeeeeease.
Noncitizens voting in a federal election is a federal offense under 18 USC 611: Voting by aliens. That is not to say it never happens. A 2016 analysis by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting.
30 cases of immigrants voting out of 23.5 million votes cast in the 42 jurisdictions reviewed. Terrifying! Call the Gestapo.
Better yet, let’s think about this logically. If you were an illegal immigrant in America, would you risk getting deported, or worse, shipped off to Gitmo for a freakin’ “I voted” sticker? Hey, MAGA, congratulations. You have people who contribute to our economy living in fear. You won. Now, get out of your mom’s basement and get a job in a meatpacking plant because we are about to experience a labor shortage that will make your pork chops cost as much as the black-market kidney. Oh, and eggs have doubled in price.
It’s clear what Republicans are doing. They know that most women don’t lean toward MAGA idiocy, so they are trying to remove us from the voting pool.
Let them try.

When I first wrote about the SAVE Act, it was still “just a proposal.” Now, it has passed the House of Representatives and is sitting in the Senate. Which means this is no longer a scary feminist bedtime story. This is an active voter-suppression bill in motion.
Yes, it still needs 60 votes in the Senate. Yes, it can still be stopped. But it has already cleared a major legislative hurdle, which is exactly why you are suddenly seeing headlines, threads, and influencers treating it as breaking news instead of a slow-moving disaster some of us have been screaming about for over a year.
And if it does get passed? Well, then, you have permission to freak your freak out. Like the kind of freak out that brings hysteria back as an untreatable female condition. But first, a way to circumvent this voter suppression.
1. Make sure your passport is up to date. Don’t feel bad if you never got a passport. 51% of Americans don’t have a passport. Just get it done.
2. Trans people must fill out passport forms correctly. And by “correctly,” I mean the f*cked up Nazi way, which denies your existence. You must check the gender you were assigned at birth. I know. I know. Never obey. But you can’t vote Republicans out of office if you can’t vote.
3. If you are about to get married, do not change your name. Your birth certificate will still work as a valid form of ID if your legal name matches your birth name.
4. If you are about to get divorced, change your name back to your maiden name (or the name that appears on your birth certificate). Changing your name at marriage and divorce is easy. Outside of these two events, it is a legal quagmire of court dates and paperwork. Trust me. I know. I took my ex-husband’s name after I got married. I had to pay fees, fill out a mountain load of paperwork, and appear in court…twice.
The Brennan Center for Justice has called the SAVE Act “the worst voting laws in congressional history.” This act would not only gut mail-in voting but also make voting for women harder than getting an airline refund.
This bill isn’t about election security. It’s about shrinking the electorate.