The SAVE Act passed the House on Feb. 11, 2026 by a vote of 218-213 and is now in the Senate awaiting a vote. Voting is expected to take place next week, according to Thune. If and when it passes the Senate, it will go to the president for a final signature.
Will SAVE Act Prevent Married Women from Registering to Vote?
Posted on February 28, 2025
Q: Is it true that under the SAVE Act married women will not be able to register to vote if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate?
A: The proposed SAVE Act instructs states to establish a process for people whose legal name doesn’t match their birth certificate to provide additional documents. But voting rights advocates say that married women and others who have changed their names may face difficulty when registering because of the ambiguity in the bill over what documents may be accepted.
Easy solution, just don’t marry anyone with a different last name.
That’s how MAGA does marriage, usually
Might go a long way in explaining those long jaws they frequently have
[Sweet Home Alabama intensifies]
Roll tide
Hmmm
Found the Kentuckian
I get the joke, but is it really so rare in the US for a woman to keep her own surname after marriage?
That was the point elsewhere here that it would hurt republicans more.
- republicans tend to be conservative, older, so are more likely for the woman to have changed her name
- democrats tend to be more liberal or more progressive or more educated, all of which are more likely for the woman to keep her name when getting married.
It’s actually pretty common for one person to take on the other’s last name.
My partner started out keeping hers, then took my last name after getting hassled over her name not matching our son’s in various situations.
This would make voting difficult for her.
They’ll go after each demographic whose voting habits favour democrats: Immigrants, women, educated, non-christian, poor, lbgtq+, young, non-white. Whichever ones you belong to, makes you a potential target of voter disenfranchisement. At he same time making it easier for: old, male, white, Christian, wealthy, uneducated, straight, multi-generational American.
Wait til you hear why they created a “war” on “drugs”!
If convicted felons can be president, they should be allowed to vote too.
Death by a thousand cuts. Each issue by itself might evoke a shrug, but put it all together, a very clear picture emerges.
BTW (and I’m sure you know) this has been going on for waaaay longer than MAGA. Arguably since the USA’s independence. Every conservative president seems to have added a little bit. The system is near completely eroded.
Depends on the immigrants, sadly.
As a non white lol why can’t I vote? I’m a legal citizen I will have no issue. I would like to know what rights the whites have over me?
Rights? Have you been paying attention?
They’re blatantly and regularly violating the first, second, fourth, and fifth amendments whenever they feel like it.
They’re absolutely going to have ICE around harassing anyone they think might vote blue, particularly people of color.
You aren’t wealthy enough to have rights.
What rights do people wealthier than me have?
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, to start with.
Grow up.
Lol so your answer is a catch phrase. Cause I notice the harm of using my people as a political football. This is why the part system is fucking stupid. Your fans just trying to help your team not the actual people
It’s NOT a “catch phrase,” it’s literally the opening of the Declaration of Independence, in which it is declared that our nation is founded on the concept that we have been endowed by GOD to have the INALIENABLE rights to Life, Liberty, and the a pursuit of Happiness.
Its not a catch phrase, it’s literally the foundation of American Democracy.
You have proven your ignorance for all to see. Stop talking now.
It’s feels weird Dems assuming I have less rights than them based on my ethnicity. What’s worse is I feel like Dems are trying to come from a good place with a good heart. But it’s starting to scare me that a group of people are ok with Latinos becoming second class citizens. As an illegal immigrant you can’t join a union or big company to get a good job. It’s causing illegal immigrants to have no choice but to take this jobs to survive.
You don’t know if you won’t have issues or not. Their whole goal is to create issues.
Live in a black area of a county in GA? Close down the polling station.
Look Hispanic near a polling station? Maybe ICE tackles you and arrests you for no reason.
Woman and your name doesn’t match? No vote.
It’s really not hard to understand what they’re trying to do. Whites don’t have more rights than you on paper. They would love to change that, and they start by bending and then breaking the law.
Never had an issue voting lol
This is what is referred to as anecdotal evidence. Go read up on voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Seems to me that if your birth name and married name match, this will disproportionately favor people who marry their siblings or other relatives. I wonder what political leaning that particular segment has 🤔
while i get the joke, i just want to make sure it’s clear to anyone coming across this understnds that women who elect to change their name in the merital tradition of erasure are more likely to be conservative, and the women who have the documents to prove their identity (like a passport) are more likely to be progressive.
all that said, the focus on how this will impact women, specifically, is frustrating because it’s ignoring the biggest groups of people who will be impacted: immigrants and working poor people. we shouldn’t tolerate the disenfranchisement of ~30% of women, so we are clear, but we are positioned to disenfranchise ~80% of immigrants and working poor and no one is talking about it. these are people who are less likely to have ANY of the acceptable documents proposed in the SAVE act.
for context, people experiencing poverty are far less likely to be born in a hospital and have a birth certificate, usually depending on a baptism certificate to establish their government name. meanwhile, immigrants may have a passport, but if it’s expired that’s unacceptable, and a lot of the nations around the world that issued the birth certificates being required by this law in place of a passport can no longer certify birth certificates simply because they aren’t existing anymore. i have multiple friends who can’t get their birth certificates right now because that would put them at risk of government retribution because they are asylum seekers. for example, my siberian neighbor isn’t going to be getting in touch with the Russian government any time soon.
so in conclusion. the aim is to disenfranchise women and minorities. the majority of the women disenfranchised will be conservative. however, the majority of people disenfranchised will be progressive.
and that’s no accident.
people experiencing poverty are far less likely to be born in a hospital and have a birth certificate
For example my teen just needed his birth certificate for a new job and we somehow misplaced it. Getting an expedited replacement took almost two weeks and cost $80.
Even allowing for hospital birth and existing records, misplacing documents is all too easy and could easily become an obstacle to voting. If I’m struggling to make ends meet, no way in hell am I willing to pay $80 to vote and I wouldn’t have thought of it two weeks ahead of time
yup. didn’t even want to get into duplicate records. but yeah, that’s another way this quietly targets working poor people. it disgusts me that 85% of this country supports racist voter ID laws, and that the republicans are using that to fabricate a mandate for even more draconian measures
Or it will disqualify a lot of married women who took their partner’s name
Unmarried women and women who keep their last name will have less trouble voting… and people whose names differ and are aware of the change, are more likely to go through the bullshit to make sure they’re registered. Maybe it’ll prevent a bunch of Magats from being able to vote
It’s utterly disgusting either way. Hope it backfires, they lose, and they’re persecuted. A kid can dream
The logic in my joke is severely flawed, and intentionally so, for comedic effect. Contrary to popular belief, it’s actually quite difficult to marry a close blood relative, even south of the Mason-Dixon line, which is why most conservatives prefer cohabitation.
20-30% of women keep their maiden name after marriage.
Liberal women are roughly twice as likely as conservative women to keep their maiden name.
So yeah, conservative women screwing themselves and also handing a minor edge to liberal women.
Yes but who is going to be enforcing this? Where specifically are they going to be enforcing this?
Because it ain’t gonna be Bumfuck, Alabama who has gone red since the Civil War.
That’s true. Odds are if implemented they’ll harass people in Minneapolis before they do Ft. Smith, AR.
You will have to show Real ID before you vote.
The vast majority of Real ID(s) do not qualify under the new act. They do not state citizenship.
If I’m understanding this correctly, passports are also a valid form of citizenship. Passports are usually held by people who lean left, so this could be another advantage the left has in this insane proposition.
I hope passports will remain good enough. I was born to irresponsible teenagers and was legally adopted by one parent, and none of them gave me a copy of my birth certificate. I’m starting to worry that it would be worth tracking it down so I’ll have a copy just in case.
This is all so insane, getting our papers in order in case we need to show them to avoid getting disappeared.
No amount of documentation will be sufficient if they want you gone.
Why on earth is a birth certificate used at all for identification?
It’s proof of citizenship. But also, here it’s a convenient and plausibly deniable way to disenfranchise people who vote differently than them.
Yeah I’m guessing even most MAGA voters don’t have a birth certificate handy, and certainly don’t have passports. This just disenfranchises MOST Americans.
The enforcement will be extremely selective. We’re talking about Republicans here. They’re not subtle about ignoring the constitution.
“Ignoring the constitution” is the bedrock of our political parties.
For example the “powers not enumerated in the constitution rest with the people” bits. There’s no limit to powers today, they do what they want.
To further your point, this is about registering to vote, not voting. People already registered grandfather in. Just like the literacy treats that white folks also wouldn’t pass, but it was only about the newly allowed black voters.
Don’t forget there are various reasons you might get disenrolled and have to register again.
Including excessive “cleaning” the registration list, for districts which have too many non-Republican voters
And also the source of the term “grandfathered in”.
The law was typically along the lines of “literacy test or your grandfather could vote”.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
Yeah, but that seems like a really dumb and not-all-encompassing proof of citizenship. That’s why I asked. The 2nd part of your reaction makes sense and very likely accurate, but probably not the official reason right? Like, what is their public excuse for using it as proof of citizenship?
What do you use?
A passport or national ID
Less than half of Americans have a passport, and that’s the only form of national ID we have. We have 50 different state IDs, but iirc only 3 of them show proof of citizenship.
Americans doesn’t necessarily have those.
Like if you don’t leave the US (like a lot of Americans don’t) you don’t have a incentive to keep your passport up to date.
Everyone in Europe has Passports, because you need it so much more.
Everyone in America have a birth certificate
Everyone in America have a birth certificate
Probably not if you’re an immigrant right? Legal or not.
I’m trying to say that a birth certificate doesn’t make much sense as a form of proof of citizenship, since it doesn’t accurately reflect immigrants and, apparently, marital status
You don’t become a legal immigrant in the us without presenting your birth certificate I think
It is though, because the US has birthright citizenship.
Here is a list of allowed document for a similar problem, for employment. Note that it categorizes the possibilities as ID, citizenship, and work authorization, and you may need one each from multiple groups. For example you might use a drivers license as ID and a certified birth certificate as proof of citizenship
It’s not quite the same since this allows identifying as from another country and with a valid work authorization, which do not apply to voting, but very similar
Obviously I’m not saying this is appropriate to mandate for voting but if we were, this is a well thought out answer to that sort of question.
It doesn’t address the voter suppression concern though
No reason to use the I9 instead of the actual bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text
That’s the version that passed the house. And the relevant bit is near the top, section 2(b).
Is no one going to point out that it establishes requirements for birth certificates? If a state doesn’t already comply with all of those, are we going to have to be reborn?
You’ll have to get a passport or move to one of the 5 states with an enhanced driver’s license that meets the requirements under section 2(b)(1).
Long form or short form? Lol
This is from USA Today. This is where political journalism is:
Will the SAVE America Act pass the Senate? Odds, predictions
The odds of the SAVE America Act passing the Senate and signed into law in 2026 are 12% according to the Polymarket betting odds, and the Kalshi market odds show 13.9% confidence that it will become law.
Betting on me losing my rights is wild.
And yet it doesn’t even make the top ten fucked up shit for today.
Human behavior is depressing.
Alternatively: Humans are capable of adapting to intensely negative situations orchestrated by a few people in positions of great unearned power and privilege. Some people do their best to survive by betting on their own continued lack of survival, because they see no other options and the buy in is low.
TBF the betting platforms had higher accuracy than aggregate polls in 2024.
Betting platforms aggregate the beliefs of the people betting on them, but this means that biases of that group affect the odds.
People who receive and respond to polls are also a subset with biases.
That’s true, but also a group that has a real and vested interest in getting the answer RIGHT. That helps.
yes, but pollsters will try to account for that in their models
So do the bookies setting odds and the people betting. People don’t win money by getting their bets wrong.
For every mathematician who beat the lottery there are millions who did not.
That’s not how bookies set odds! They do it based on what people bet, so if 10 people bet against something and 20 bet for it, the same account each, the odds will be 2:1, reduced a bit so the bookies makes a profit. This guarantees that the bookies make money.
How is that any different from what I said? The simple ratio is an automatic adjustment for Bias.
Are you being serious?
Are you?
I definitely trust the prediction markets more than just about any poll.
IDK about that, but credit where due they aren’t a terrible source.
Why would I need Steve Kornacki or whoever when I’ve got degenerate gamblers?
Nah, I once made a hundred bucks because they had Doug Jones losing to that pedo. They’d just as fallible as anything else.
I mean, nothing is 100%.
Well, nothing anyone would allow you to bet on.
Does that mean Alabama women are safe?
(☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞
My circles have been discussing this one for a while. Not a coincidence that they are making it more difficult to get a passport.
Do the Republicans really think they are going to benefit from a requirement that disenfranchises people who don’t have proof of citizenship like:
-Women who got married and took their husbands last name
-People who keep getting divorced over and over again
-People who have never travelled outside the USBear in mind that the people who are basically guaranteed to have their documents in order are:
-Recently naturalized citizens
-People who travel a lot
-Unmarried women
-People who graduated collegeSo your local lesbian coven of naturalized middle aged Latinas. They are going to have zero problem voting. Joe Bob the cousin fucker from Alabama who has never gotten more than 20 miles from his trailer park and doesn’t believe in “the gummet”, and hasn’t had a job that didn’t pay cash in his whole life? Yeah, that fucker doesn’t have a passport.
But hey, at least they are going to stop all the undocumented immigrants who already weren’t allowed to register to vote in the first place.
This is going to be like how they attacked absentee voting without realizing that the majority of absentees were retirees and the military.
Do the Republicans really think
Not usually
See, the thing Jim Crow and its “literacy tests” taught us is that you just need a rule that you can enforce on the wrong people, and then you just choose not to enforce it when it’s convenient.
But that’s the thing. YOU know that. But do they? ID verification, unlike literacy tests, is pretty objective. There isn’t much room to target that enforcement apart from the existing biases in who has id and who doesn’t.
The literacy tests were only given to “specific kinds” of people.
And the same will be true for ID verification.
If you look “trustworthy” they won’t ask for your ID.As a white guy, I’m aware that there have been times where I’m just accepted at face value when other people would have required ID. Why would voting be any different? It’s not the ID itself necessarily, but who is asked for it and who likely has it in order
As an older guy I’ve also had occasion to laugh at zero tolerance ID mandates for alcohol. At one point I went out for drinks with co-workers of a variety of ages. I somehow forgot my ID so they refused service despite me obviously being well over the age requirement. Instead of getting frustrated, I was amused at getting a coworker less than half my age to buy my beer. Sometimes you just need to laugh at the ridiculousness. But it would not have been funny if something like this kept me from voting
Checkout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws I think that might help you see where the Trump admin is cribbing notes from.
So your local lesbian coven of naturalized middle aged Latinas.
Just want to emphasize this hilarious line for anyone who doesn’t feel like reading the entire post. Please carry on.
Looking forward to being a future target for never having married and/or taken a man’s name next!
None of us are safe until all of us are safe.
Basic rights with exceptions are like ads saying “Up to 20% off!*”
The fine print makes it a farce.
Voting as a man when you’re not? Jail time for you.
Fascism
and Patriarchy
Not having any form of national ID really does lead to some goofy shit when you need to positivly identify people.
Our elections take place inside the state where we reside. We have state ID with a picture and the voting rolls match our address. It’s a pretty simple process that has worked for the last 40 years or so. I’ve always had to provide proof ID and residence to vote
Right? Imagine claiming to be the greatest country on earth and then not even have a national ID, something I bet even every third world country has lol. The US is such a circus lol.
We’ve fought having a national ID for decades, with consideration to an administration similar to the current one taking over. We didn’t want the nazis running around demanding papers 10 years ago. It was trumps voting base that was most opposed to it 😭😅
Historically this was actively fought as an anti-fascist concern. Up until recently it was a big human right issue that you should not be required to show identification except in limited circumstances
And of course now with all the surveillance, tracking, and data collection, it’s more important than ever …… just as we no longer care
I guess all those blue haired feminists that refused to get married or change their last names still get to vote
Next they’ll exclude anyone whose current hair color doesn’t match their official one.
A lot of Republican men won’t be able to vote then.
If your name doesn’t match what’s on your birth certificate, look into whether your state allows you to change your birth certificate and do it before it’s too late. My name is not my birth name or my married name, I had it legally changed. I got tired of hauling around my birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce paperwork, and legal name change to show the paper trail that I both was who I was and was no longer legally married. Turns out in my state I just had to send in a notarized form, copies of my paperwork and pay small fee and I got my birth certificate updated to my current name. Now I can “prove” who I am by just showing my birth certificate and ignore the fact that I was married and changed my name. It also made updating my passport easier. Granted, I am not trans, but I did it last year and they had the option to change gender on the form.
How isn’t showing your passport sufficient evidence to tell you are who you tell you are?
Not everyone has their passport. If you do, that should be sufficient. It also made updating my passport easier, way less paperwork to send in. I’d never gotten around to updating my passport to the correct name and it was much less paperwork to send in.
It’s not like it’s impossible for such people to vote, but getting your documents in order costs money.
Same for voting on a weekday, voting offices being only in affluent neighbourhoods, voting demanding an ID …No money, no democracy.
It also takes weeks or months to get official documents in order.
Yes, time too.
Don’t worry. They’ll have clear instructions on how to vote posted on the wall of the voting precinct on Tuesdays between 12 and 12:30 starting 15 days before the election.
Reminds me of:
Florida to experiment with new 600-lever voting machine - The Onion (YouTube video)
