How Trump’s SAVE America Act could make it harder for married women to vote

Under President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act, millions of women could face fresh challenges as voters would be required to prove their citizenship before casting their ballot.

Federal legislation would require most Americans to provide a birth certificate or passport to register to vote. But people whose names do not match their birth certificate may in some cases be required to provide additional documents, such as a marriage certificate or divorce decree, that link their past and current identities.

The proposal has potentially far-reaching consequences for millions of married and divorced women, transgender people and others who have changed their names.

Up to 69 million American women have birth certificates that don’t match their current name, according to an analysis by the liberal Center for American Progress.

“The fact that the majority of women change their names upon marriage already means that there will be wildly unequal application of the law,” said Letitia Harmon, senior director of policy and research at Florida Rising, a racial and economic justice nonprofit.

Harmon, 43, has personal experience with the issue because of state citizenship proof laws that have become more common in recent years.

The Florida resident formerly lived in Kansas, where individuals were required to provide documents such as a birth certificate or passport to register to vote until federal courts ruled the law unconstitutional. Before the 2014 election, Harmon was unable to find her birth certificate before the registration deadline and was unable to vote.

More recently, Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Utah have adopted citizenship proof measures this year, in addition to Wyoming in 2025. Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Florida SAVE Act last week.

A dozen years later, Harmon fears she may again face additional hurdles to voting — this time due to multiple name changes. Harmon, who changed her name when she married but later divorced and changed it again, expressed concern that if election officials ever audited her registration, it would be flagged.

“It’s heartbreaking and infuriating. It feels like we’re taking a step backwards,” Harmon said.

Debate in DC

In Washington, the US Senate is debating the SAVE America Act, Trump’s flagship ballot initiative, after a version of the bill passed the House of Representatives. The bill does not appear to have enough support to survive a filibuster, but Trump and his allies have pressured senators to end the filibuster in order to pass it before the midterm elections.

Supporters of the bill describe it as an election integrity measure and say it is necessary to prevent non-citizens from voting, even though studies have shown that this occurs extremely rarely. The measure reflects a longstanding attempt by Trump to impose greater federal control over elections, which includes a Justice Department campaign to obtain sensitive state voter data and an executive order signed last week restricting mail-in voting.

Opponents condemn the law as unnecessary and poorly drafted. If passed, the bill would take effect immediately, throwing the electoral process into chaos in a midterm election year as millions of people registering to vote seek to prove their citizenship. The fresh requirements risk disenfranchising American voters struggling to get the documents they need in a timely manner.

Disproportionate impact on married women

Critics have particularly focused on the legislation’s disproportionate impact on women. According to this, 84 percent of women in same-sex marriages either take their husband’s last name or write a hyphen a 2023 Pew Research Center survey. In contrast, fewer than 6% of men took their wife’s last name or hyphenated her name.

“Given that 85% of American women change their names when they get married, the impact on women will be enormous and very problematic,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said in an interview in February.

The version of the bill passed by the House states that people applying for registration whose names do not match the name on their citizenship documents may provide “additional documentation necessary to establish that the name on the documentation is a former name of the applicant” or sign an affidavit certifying that the name on the documents is their former name.

Under the bill, each state would establish a process for implementing this provision, consistent with guidance from the Federal Election Assistance Commission, a nonpartisan, independent commission that assists election officials.

Provision of the affidavit unclear

Some election and legal experts said the affidavit provision was unclear. It comes just before another provision that allows people without proof of citizenship to register if they sign a certification that they are citizens and an election official signs an affidavit stating that the person has reasonably established citizenship. The Election Assistance Commission would prepare a uniform affidavit for operate in this situation.

“Who knows what kind of process they’ll say,” said Alison Gill, director of nominations and democracy at the National Women’s Law Center, a progressive legal advocacy group. “So there is a language, but it is still very vague and conflicting.”

Because states would be responsible for establishing procedures for verifying people with different names on their documents, some states would likely try to make the process easier than others, Gill said. However, election officials would likely opt for strict enforcement because they could be prosecuted for registering people who do not provide citizenship documents.

“Ultimately, this places a burden on election officials, who face criminal and civil liability under the bill, to potentially decide whether to risk registering an individual with mismatched documents,” Gill said.

“Frankly offensive”

White House officials and some Republicans in Congress have disputed that people who change their names would face greater difficulty registering to vote. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in March that claims the legislation would discourage women from voting or make it harder for them to vote had “no validity.”

Married women who have changed their names and are already eligible to vote would not be affected by the legislation, Leavitt said. She added that the “small portion” of people who change their name or address would have to go through their state’s process to update their records.

“I find it frankly insulting that Democrats are saying that there are certain groups of people in this country who are not smart enough to update their records to allow them to vote,” Leavitt said.

But Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised concerns about the impact of the SAVE America Act on married women. Murkowski, who opposes the bill, said in a speech that an estimated 155,000 Alaskan female citizens ages 15 and older have names that do not match their birth certificates.

“Again, is it impossible? No,” Murkowski said. “Will it really be a challenge? Absolutely, yes.”

Lawsuits secured

The SAVE America Act would almost certainly face legal challenges if it were enacted, and the Supreme Court would come under enormous pressure to weigh in because of the sweeping, nationwide changes to the law.

Some federal courts have ruled against requiring voter registration after proof of citizenship. In 2020, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Kansas’ law, finding it violated federal election laws as well as the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court at the time declined to take up the Kansas case.

The name change provisions alone could pose their own legal challenges.

Tracy Thomas, a constitutional law professor at the University of Akron School of Law in Ohio, said opponents could argue that the bill’s impact on people who change their names would amount to voting discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law.

Courts have upheld some voting restrictions, such as requiring people to show photo ID when voting, as acceptable rules that do not impose undue burdens on voters. However, Thomas pointed out that the SAVE America Act could go too far by delaying people’s registration, requiring multiple steps and forcing them to pay for needed documents.

“That sounds like more than minimal inconvenience,” Thomas said.