A few weeks ago, my sister called me. The midday call wasn’t abnormal. Her question was.
“Is it true that Republicans are pushing a bill that would make it impossible for married women to vote?”
What? Where in the world are you getting that?
WOMEN AREN’T FALLING FOR ANTI-SAVE ACT FEAR CAMPAIGN
To be clear, I wasn’t surprised to learn that detractors of the SAVE Act have created a completely false narrative, wildly and recklessly ignorant of the actual bill’s text. After all, it feels like yesterday that I was playing whac-a-mole with DCCC advertisements pedaling the idea that Republican entitlement reform proposals for future generations would push current octogenarians off a fiscal (and, in their ads, literal) cliff, bankrupting them immediately.
But I digress.
Still, for me, and for other American women trying to keep up with the news while working our 9-to-5 jobs before clocking in for a second shift of carpool runs, dinner prep, and laundry, this feels like a different, dangerous level of fearmongering.
Last week, Former first lady Hillary Clinton posted the following on her X feed:
“Are you a married woman who enjoys exercising your constitutional right to vote? This afternoon, Senate Republicans and Trump hope to make it much harder for you. Call your senator and tell them to vote NO on the ‘SAVE’ Act.”
Sadly, this idiotic, bogus trope has been echoed and emphasized countless times since. And because not every married woman of voting age can ring up their sister for a better understanding of proposed election laws, it seems some clarity may be overdue.
First, if you are already lawfully registered to vote, the SAVE Act doesn’t affect you at all. You do not need to re-register. So, Clinton, rest assured that a married woman, lawfully registered to vote, may show up to her local polling place as planned when the SAVE Act becomes the law of the land. Suggesting that married women will be unable to vote is not only absurd, but it is an intentional effort to spread election disinformation of the very sort that Democrats routinely claim is responsible for so much dysfunction in our political process.
So, what does the SAVE Act say?
The source of the feigned confusion seems to be the SAVE Act’s requirement that registering to vote would require “documentary proof of United States citizenship.” There are several ways to satisfy that standard, including by presenting a U.S. passport, a Real ID that confirms U.S. citizenship, or a military or government ID card accompanied by or affirming a U.S. birthplace. If a would-be voter has none of those forms of identification, any government ID supplemented with proof of citizenship will suffice. And in the event that a would-be voter is unable to provide any of these document combinations at all, the SAVE Act requires each state to create a process that permits someone to register to vote by attesting to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury.
The SAVE Act also provides for a process to address name discrepancies. For example, if you were recently married and changed your name before registering to vote, and your documentary proof of U.S. citizenship lists your maiden name, there is a way to address that, too. The bill requires states to establish a process so that the maiden name ID can be accepted as long as the would-be voter can provide, via sworn statement, proof that the name on the document is in fact their former name.
The truth is simple, despite Democrat protestations to the contrary. Married or unmarried, name change or not, women in the country can absolutely still easily vote once the act is passed. As long as we’ve been changing our names after a trip to the altar, women have been navigating the process to formally effectuate a name change. And wouldn’t you know it — married women with shiny new last names are still able to procure insurance, book airline tickets, purchase homes, and, yes, vote in elections.
The SAVE Act is purposed to enact wildly popular, long-overdue election reforms that cross every partisan schism. While the election law environment has changed so much in the nearly 20 years that I’ve been a practicing attorney in this space, the American public’s approval of photo identification and proof of citizenship to vote has been unwavering. A recent FactCheck.org article confirms: 84% of Americans support requiring photo ID to vote, and 83% of Americans support requiring proof of citizenship before casting a ballot. The article continues to note that nearly two-thirds of Democrats, 8-in-10 independents, and nearly all Republicans agree.
RNC BETS ON COURTS TO ENACT VOTER INTEGRITY MEASURES AS SAVE AMERICA ACT STALLS
This is the mission of the SAVE Act. Democrat efforts to obstruct a near mandate from the American people with insulting, ignorant lies, weaponizing women to pray on women, is unforgivable.
As I tell my elementary-aged kids, you can’t believe everything you read these days.
Jessica Furst Johnson is Partner and Co-Chair of the Political Law Practice at Lex Politica