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?

By Hadleigh Zinsner

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.

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[–] 51 points 6 months ago (23 children)

Why on earth is a birth certificate used at all for identification?

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  • [–] 46 points 6 months ago (17 children)

    It's proof of citizenship. But also, here it's a convenient and plausibly deniable way to disenfranchise people who vote differently than them.

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  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago* (4 children)

    The enforcement will be extremely selective. We’re talking about Republicans here. They’re not subtle about ignoring the constitution.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    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

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    "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.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    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?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 6 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago* (4 children)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    You don’t become a legal immigrant in the us without presenting your birth certificate I think

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    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).

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    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?

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