The SAVE ACT: The Hidden Threat to Women's Suffrage in the U.S.
- Marta Fernández Martínez
- Mar 5
- 5 min read
Since Trump's arrival in the American administration, countless presidential decrees and bills have been passed in record time, after the Republicans have regained the much-coveted power in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In this context, they have not wanted to miss the opportunity to take advantage of the “voter fraud” boom of the past 2024 elections to introduce a new law proposing to “safeguard” democracy.
The bill titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE Act) led by Texas Representative Chip Roy was originally introduced on June 3, 2024 and would eventually pass the Senate, where it would be rejected by the Democratic majority. However, thanks to the new Republican surge, it has been reintroduced to the House of Representatives on January 3, with the assurance that it will pass without further effort.
The SAVE Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of U.S. citizenship for those seeking to register to vote in elections. This measure would further bureaucratize the registration process, forcing citizens to present documentation that the vast majority of Americans do not currently have.
According to Republican leaders, this new law is inchoate to keep elections free of non-American voters. For in the words of Chip Roy, elections have been “hijacked” by foreigners. Disregarding firstly, that the percentage of foreign voters is minuscule (for example, consider the case of Georgia in 2024, where 20 non-citizens were discovered out of 8.4 million registered voters, or 0.00024%) and secondly it was already illegal to vote as a non-citizen, with various measures in place across the country to do so.
The Save Act states that registration will require in-person presentation of one of the following documents: a valid U.S. passport, a U.S. military card, an identity document that includes place of birth (there is a wide disparity between states in this regard, as many do not include place of birth on driver's licenses or state IDs, so their citizens would have to apply for new identity documents), a birth certificate, or a certificate of naturalization.
This in-person proof-of-citizenship requirement would also eliminate popular online registration methods. In addition to establishing prison sentences of up to 5 years for poll workers who register citizens without proper documentation.
Now let's talk about the data, the last election had a turnout of 153 million Americans, of which an estimated 146 million do not possess a valid passport. More than 21.3 million Americans lack immediate access to documentary proof of citizenship. Of these percentages, we must also consider the great inequality of access to this document depending on socioeconomic level. Four out of five Americans with incomes of less than $50,000 do not have a valid passport.
The social groups most affected would be: the lower and middle class, transgender people (having changed their official names, there is no concordance with their birth certificates and they could be denied), disabled people, senior citizens, African Americans (it is estimated that they are three times more likely to lack documents such as birth certificates, passports, naturalization or citizenship certificates) and married women.
This is where the interesting part of this bill comes in, because what it really hides is a legal loophole in which women's right to vote (apart from the other groups mentioned) could be seriously undermined.
The reason for this is related to the surname system established in the United States, in which women take the surname of their husbands when they get married, making an official name change.
The question of a woman adopting her husband's surname can be traced back to the doctrine of “coverture” through the English common law of the ninth century, in which a woman was associated as the property first of her father and then of her husband and therefore had to bear the same name as her owners. This doctrine prevented women from entering into contracts, engaging in litigation, participating in business or owning property. During the 19th century in the U.S., it was not mandatory for women to keep their maiden names, however, those who chose to keep them faced various legal problems. For example, in the 1850s Lucy Stone was a prominent suffragist who pushed for the retention of maiden names, when she herself was excluded from exercising her right to vote because she had not changed her name to that of her husband. Thanks to the feminist movement, American women found advances through the Married Women's Property Acts where women acquired individual legal status. Although it was not until the 1970s when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Tennessee law that required women to adopt their husbands' last names in order to register to vote, that we found a true legal basis protecting the civil rights of American women. Despite these legal changes, U.S. women culturally continue to maintain this tradition rooted in male dominance. Less than 20% decide to keep their surnames when they marry.
Currently 69 million women who have adopted their spouse's last name do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name, that is 84% of all married women in the USA.
Several associations and institutions defending civil rights have already denounced the great danger that women face with this new law proposal. Since the names do not coincide between the identity documents and birth certificates, and the same proposal does not mention the possibility of showing a marriage certificate or documentation of a change of name, American women would not be able to access the voter registry and would be legally excluded from exercising their right to vote.
We should not think that this loophole is accidental, since already in 2020 anti-abortion activist and Republican Party speaker Abby Jhonson showed her support for “family voting” where the head of the household, i.e. the man, would cast one vote for his entire family (an argument dating back to the era of women's suffrage before the 19th Amendment was passed) and likewise, Bill 2025 explicitly endorsed and promoted this sexist voting model. So, if this bill is ultimately passed, family voting could be considered Trump's next legislative move.
In short, the SAVE Act would be a major setback for the civil rights of Americans and specifically for women's rights. We can only wait for the next legislative advances, although according to experts, it is most likely to be accepted by both houses of Congress without major problems.
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