This one weird trick could stop US women from voting | Arwa Mahdawi

Beware of the Save Act

If you’re like me, then you’re currently stripping your own cortisol. As the United States becomes more and more violent and cruel, each day brings new horrors. So I’m really sorry to tell you that I’m here to ruin your weekend by giving you yet another worry. This thing is called the Save Act, and if the Trump administration gets its way, it could have an outsized impact on the November midterm elections, particularly when it comes to voting rights for minorities and married women.

A good rule of thumb when looking at a bill or campaign written by Republicans is that its name is the direct opposite of what it is intended to achieve. If there’s something in the title about “protecting women,” for example, it’s probably really about controlling women or intimidating transgender people. The same goes for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, which would change how U.S. citizens register to vote. The aim of the bill does not seem to be to safeguard democracy but to contribute to its destruction through stealth deprivation of the right to vote.

If it becomes law, the Save Act would require Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport or other citizenship document to register or re-register to vote. According to a study by the Brennan Center, more than 21 million U.S. citizens, many of whom are engaged voters, do not have easy access to these documents. While just over 8% of self-identified white U.S. citizens lack these documents, the Brennan Center found that this figure rises to nearly 11% among Americans of color.

Women who changed their name upon marriage may also face a logistical nightmare: Reports show that as many as 69 million women who took their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name. “The legislation does not mention the ability for these Americans to present name change documents or a marriage certificate in combination with a birth certificate to prove their citizenship,” noted the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.

To make things even more complicated for everyone, the Save Act would also disrupt online voter registration. Americans would have to appear in person, with their original documents, simply to update their voter registration information.

A law on proof of citizenship similar to the Save Act has already been tried, notably between 2013 and 2017 in Kansas. And guess what? It was a costly disaster that prevented more than 30,000 Kansans from voting. It is well established that these types of laws disproportionately harm low-income, disabled, married women and marginalized voters. Why are Republicans so keen to make it harder for these groups to vote? I’m sure I don’t need to explain it to you.

Of course, the Save Act is not being presented as a way for Republicans to sneakily influence the midterm elections in their favor as confidence in Trump wanes. Rather, it is presented as a way to stop fraudulent voting. “[W]We all know, intuitively, that many illegal immigrants vote in federal elections,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference about the law when it was introduced in May 2024. “But it’s not something that’s easily provable. » I think we all know intuitively that this is not easy to prove because this claim is absurd. And, actually, we don’t need to rely on intuition, we have data! A Brennan Center for Justice study of the 2016 election found that only 0.0001% of votes (30 incidents) in 42 jurisdictions, with a total of 23.5 million votes, were suspected of including non-citizen voting. Non-citizen voting is already illegal and is not a problem that needs to be addressed by new legislation.

So how likely is it that the Save Act, or some version of it, will pass before the midterm elections? It’s not clear, but unfortunately it seems more and more likely by the day. The Save Act passed the House in 2025, but then stalled in the Senate. Now, however, there is a lot of new momentum to try to cross the line. In a speech to House Republicans earlier this year, Trump urged lawmakers to pass a national voter ID law before the 2026 midterm elections and his friends have stepped up efforts to draft what House Majority Leader Steve Scalise recently called an “even stronger” version of the Save Act.

And of course, if it’s not the Save Act, it will be something else. The Trump administration has worked to gut the mechanisms that guarantee the freedom and fairness of electoral systems. They can’t overturn the November midterm elections (yet), but they can destroy trust in the system with baseless claims of voter fraud. They can redraw the map of Congress and try to impose onerous voting requirements.

Of course, this is how democracy dies. Not in obscurity, but in the daily headlines. Not with a bang, but with a relentless barrage of paperwork. Not with a power-hungry man who breaks the law, but with his legion of henchmen who weaponize him.

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