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.
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.
And also the source of the term "grandfathered in".
The law was typically along the lines of "literacy test or your grandfather could vote".
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
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?
It is though, because the US has birthright 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
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
But that birth certificate can never show proof of US citizenship for immigrants right? I'm assuming the US won't give a US-based birth certificate if you're not born there.
You get registered as a citizen. But if you want to have an id you need a passport or something.
Long form or short form? Lol
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).