It was 105 years ago that women in America won the right to vote through the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
A woman’s right to vote was not handed to us. We marched, we were jailed, we were force-fed in prison cells, we were mocked and vilified, and some of us died. But we did not stop until the 19th Amendment became law.
And now, in a few short weeks since Trump’s inauguration and a Republican controlled Congress took over—without the noise of riot squads, without the smoke of burning suffragist sashes—our right to vote is threatened.
Threatened by men who’ve convinced themselves that democracy is safer if fewer people are allowed to participate. Threatened by a MAGA Republican party that has grown afraid of women’s voices, especially when they speak out against authoritarianism, book bans, and back-alley abortions. And in support of Medicaid, Social Security, reproductive health and the Equal Rights Amendment.
The so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act—the SAVE Act—has just passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is headed next to the Senate. Don’t let the name fool you. It will not save democracy. It will strangle it, slowly and methodically, by requiring every new voter to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. Only original birth certificates, passports, or naturalization papers are accepted.
And if you need to update your registration or re-register—because you moved, got married and changed your name—you’ll have to start from scratch.
Millions of women—particularly married women who changed their names—stand to be turned away from the ballot box.
Imagine this: You walk into a voter registration office with your current ID to change your address or register for the first time. But your ID no longer matches your birth certificate. Your name has changed, like it does for 69 million American women.
Now, you must track down a decades-old birth certificate and marriage certificate. Or a court order you never had. Or spend over a hundred dollars on a passport you may never use. And if you live in a rural town, or on tribal land, or lack access to transportation—good luck getting to the nearest government office in time.
This is not a voter ID law. This is a show-your-papers law. A test. An obstacle course. A wall built against women.
As the Brennan Center for Justice notes, over 21 million citizens in this country don’t have either a birth certificate or passport. And even those who do may find they’ve fallen into bureaucratic limbo: mismatched names, outdated IDs, lost paperwork.
And who will be hit the hardest? Women of course. Young women. Older women. Poor women. Rural women. Immigrant women. Black and Brown women. Widows whose marriages were decades ago. Survivors who changed their names to protect themselves. People who’ve always voted without issue—until now.
If you have any doubts about the intent of behind this rights-robbing bill just look at who’s behind it:
