Voting Rights

I regret to inform you that there’s another hair-on-fire reason to call your reps. Representative Chip Roy’s (R-TX) Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) is likely coming up for a vote soon, per Indivisible HQ. It would effectively disenfranchise millions within the US—with a disproportionate impact on married women and anyone else who has changed their name, including transgender folks. It would also basically end voting from abroad.

[ETA: Via CCL in the comments, the bill is being fast-tracked. It’s currently listed as H.R. 22, and you can follow its progress here. Thanks, CCL!]

A few of its provisions include:

• Voters must appear in person to register to vote, even if they currently reside abroad (effectively ending mail-in registration, voter registration drives, and online registration)
• Voters must provide documentary proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport with their current legal name on it (21 million people, including many married women who took their husbands’ surnames)
• Election workers who improperly register a voter—even one who is a legitimate citizen—face up to five years in prison

It would also require all states to carry out regular voter-roll purges. More delights in these explainers by the Center for American Progress (CAP), Democrats Abroad, and the Campaign Legal Center.

We do not have to imagine the impact this bill could have. There was a dry-run of it just last week in New Hampshire, which recently enacted a similar state law. From New Hampshire Public Radio:

In Hopkinton, 70-year-old Betsy Spencer did end up casting a ballot, but it took plenty of doing.

Spencer has lived and voted in Hopkinton for decades, but briefly relocated to Maine where she cast a ballot in November’s election. She moved back to Hopkinton last month, and when she arrived at the polls to register Tuesday, she thought she was prepared.

“I had my birth certificate, a change of address from the US Postal Service — everything but my blood type and the kitchen sink — and I was told I could not register to vote,” Spencer said.

The issue, Spencer said, was that her surname on her birth certificate is different from how she was registering to vote.

“When I divorced, I kept my last name for consistency with my family,” Spencer said. “The idea that women have to prove their name change is profoundly sexist and limiting.”

Spencer said after local election officials consulted with the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office, her expired passport was deemed sufficient proof of ID for her to register and vote. But she said casting her ballot ended up taking several hours.

CAP estimates that there are as many as 69 million women in the US who take their husband’s surname after marriage. While some fraction of us would be able to produce a passport, it isn’t a large fraction of us. And, while another woman voter in NH mentioned in the article was able to vote after showing her marriage license as well as her birth certificate, there is no such provision in the SAVE Act.

The ACLU has a good script in the sidebar of this page. If you’re calling in a red or reddish-purple district, be sure to mention the fact that military voters serving our nation abroad would be disenfranchised by this. We could stop this with the filibuster in the senate, but . . . well, I guess we can but try.

Sinking the SAVE ActPost + Comments (98)