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.
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 US
Bear 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 college
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.
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.
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