The SAVE Act Could Stop Millions of Women from Voting

Thursday, February 13, 2025

[The SAVE Act] would also have a direct impact on anyone whose legal name does not match the name on their birth certificate or passport, such as the 79% of heterosexual married women, per Pew Research, who take their spouse's last name. "If a married woman hasn't paid $130 to update her passport--assuming she has one, which only about half of Americans do--she may not be able to vote in the next election if the SAVE Act becomes law," [Wendy] Weiser, [vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law,] says.

Posted by retort at 10:16 AM | 9 COMMENTS | permalink

If the SAVE Act becomes law, it would upend most methods of voter registration, including registering online and by mail. It's ill-conceived and anti-voter.

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-- Brennan Center (@brennancenter.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 9:50 AM

Comments

"Ill conceived and anti-voter"

The GOP/MAGA in a nutshell.

#1 | Posted by jpw at 2025-02-13 10:26 AM

... This week, the fundamentalist Christian pastor Dale Partridge argued in a series of tweets that "in a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband's direction". In other words, he pits his version of the religion against the constitution, which, since the 19th amendment passed a century ago, guarantees adult citizens the right to vote regardless of sex. He argues that in marriage, the husband annexes and owns his wife's voice and rights, so that he in effect gets two votes and she gets none. The far-right preacher is not alone in this argument that women should not have the right to participate in public life and act on their views and values.

Jesse Watters, the Fox News personality, has argued that if he found out his wife "was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair". It violates "the sanctity of our marriage; what else is she keeping from me?" Rightwing agitator Charlie Kirk also got upset about the idea that women might vote according to their agenda and not their husband's.

These men are offering warnings about what awaits women who marry men like them. Maybe it's worth noting here that the rightwing opposition to marriage equality as same-sex marriage is in part because they're opposed to marriage equality within heterosexual marriage. They want marriage to be an inherently unequal relationship with a subordinate wife and an entitled husband, a cozy little authoritarian regime at home.

One of the things the 2024 US presidential election is about is whether or not women should be free and equal full citizens of this republic.

But there's another way that women are not free and equal which a few videos, a lot of tweets and reportedly some Post-It notes in women's bathrooms have addressed " when women are afraid to vote for their chosen candidate, when their husbands or boyfriends are Trump supporters and they are Harris supporters. I just wrote a Guardian piece about the fact that so many women apparently are bullied over their political beliefs, despite assurances that there are ways to vote without being tyrannized, is troubling. It suggests that there's a whole other kind of voting suppression and coercion that deserves investigation and raises questions about voting at home. ...