The latest in fake news? Sixty-nine million married women will be blocked from voting. This is simply false and truly ridiculous that such a claim is even being pushed with a straight face regarding the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act in Congress.
The radical Left wants America to believe that requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote is some kind of war on women. Ridiculous. Frankly, it’s an insult to women to suggest that changing their last name will block them from the ballot box. I think we know how to change our last names when we get married. We do it all the time for driver’s licenses and passports.
The facts may be less interesting than the liberal fiction, but they are still true. The SAVE Act amends the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. That’s it. That’s called protecting the ballot box. That’s called common sense. That’s called election integrity, and women are smart enough to understand it.
These days, I need a valid ID to buy cold medicine at a grocery store. You need one to board a domestic flight. You need one to check into a hotel. You need one to open a bank account. For Pete’s sake, you need a valid ID to get a marriage license.
No one claims those requirements are an assault on women. No one says married women are incapable of navigating those systems. Because they aren’t. This isn’t about married women or about name changes or about paperwork. It’s about political power.
The American people overwhelmingly support voter ID and citizenship verification. They want confidence in their elections. They want assurance that the system works and that their vote isn’t diluted. Democrats know this. And instead of debating the issue honestly, they resort to scare tactics and weaponizing women as political shields. I guess they cannot tell the truth, which is that they hate election integrity because it would hurt their own vote totals.
What Democrats don’t want to admit is the real reason they oppose voter ID and citizenship verification. They know Americans overwhelmingly support election safeguards. They know voters want confidence in the system. And they know that tighter verification makes it harder to exploit loopholes.
As executive vice president at Heritage Action and co-founder of Moms for Liberty, I have spent years working alongside state legislators, grassroots activists, and millions of Americans to strengthen election integrity laws. We’ve championed commonsense voter ID requirements. We’ve supported cleaning up voter rolls. We’ve advanced policies that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
The SAVE Act is part of that mission. It is a federal safeguard to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in federal elections. That should not be controversial. It should not be partisan. It should be the baseline.
EDITORIAL: MAKE DEMOCRATS DEFEND NONCITIZEN VOTING
This debate boils down to one simple question: Should American elections be decided by American citizens? If the answer is yes, and for the overwhelming majority of Americans it is, then verifying citizenship during voter registration is not suppression. It is protection.
Women are not falling for this fake fear campaign. We are not confused. And we certainly do not need progressive politicians pretending to defend us while undermining the integrity of our elections. The SAVE Act promotes election integrity, and its opponents do not.
Tiffany Justice is the executive vice president of Heritage Action.