Yes. Please do. You can also ask her why she wanted to make it harder for you as a woman and citizen to vote. Also, at the end of the article, I provide a number of ice breakers and talking points that you might want to use when chatting with your community.
Jay, what makes it discriminatory is the cost and the effort to obtain the proof. Poor people have many obstacles to being able to prove citizenship. It could be that records can be requested online, but one would have to have access to internet. Poor people disproportionately do not. This leaves going in person to request the records, that unless you live within walking distance, you'll need transportation. Often the location for these offices are not convenient to where people go. Like shopping districts, or city centers, or near schools or libraries....
These sorts of requirements were found to disproportionately prohibitive to the poor as a way to suppress their right to vote. These types of laws were used in the south to keep people of color from being able to vote. During the civil rights era, the supreme Court ruled it prohibitive forcing states to remove the requirement. They also added additional monitoring on states that had done this to ensure that voting wasn't being suppressed. Recently, the supreme court has removed many of the requirements and all of the monitoring from those states.
If they really wanted everyone to have this sort of ID so they could vote, they would make the id free, and they would set up popup tents in poor neighborhoods so it would be accessible. The truth is, they don't, they want to suppress voting so they can be in control.
first of all, stop ASKING for parity. We ARE equal, and more. Be assertive and not in a nice way. This takes practice, a mindset of supplicancy can be changed.
Looking at this again, I see that I didn’t examine the full scope of the issue before commenting. In hindsight, I would have approached this differently. While the REAL ID requirement itself isn’t new and does not directly remove voting rights, the broader context matters. Bureaucracy has always been used as a tool to make voting harder for specific groups, and this law—while not outright disenfranchisement—creates additional hurdles that disproportionately affect women, especially those who have changed their names.
I still believe clarity is essential. Fear can lead to overgeneralization, but at the same time, minimizing how these measures function within a larger strategy of voter suppression is just as dangerous. It’s not just about what’s on paper—it’s about how laws like this play out in practice.
I stand by the need to address what is happening now, while also keeping a sharp eye on where this could lead. The fight is not just against restrictive policies but for a system where voting is accessible to all. That remains unchanged.
Original Reply:
Lorissa, I’m sitting here in Germany, watching this unfold with a mix of disbelief and complete clarity. The SAVE Act isn’t just another hurdle—it’s a deliberate and calculated move to strip away voting rights, targeting women in particular.
And unfortunately, I saw this coming. It was consequential. The pattern has been clear for a long time—control over bodies, control over votes, control over power. First, they came for reproductive rights. Now, they’re coming for political agency itself. Step by step, they tighten their grip, making sure that those most likely to resist are silenced before they can even cast a ballot.
The sheer audacity of it is staggering. They know exactly what they’re doing, setting up barriers that will disproportionately affect the very people most likely to vote against them. No need to repeal the 19th when they can simply make it nearly impossible for millions of women to vote in the first place. And they’re counting on bureaucracy, cost, and confusion to do their work for them.
Your call to action is essential. It’s not enough to be outraged—we have to make sure this conversation reaches every woman who will be impacted. Not months from now. Now. Before it’s too late.
Thank you so much for your engagement and insights. You really laid out the problem- and their plan - so articulately. We need more voices like yours lighting up these dark times.
Lorissa, I appreciate that. The more we expose their strategy, the harder it becomes for them to hide behind bureaucracy and manufactured chaos. They count on people underestimating them, assuming these measures are just administrative hurdles rather than deliberate tools of disenfranchisement. But this isn’t subtle. It’s systematic.
Women—especially those who have changed their names—are being targeted with surgical precision. It’s voter suppression dressed up as election security, just like every other attempt to make democracy harder for those who stand in their way. And the worst part? They know most people won’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
That’s why this conversation matters. Not just between us, but everywhere, with everyone who will listen. Because once the doors are locked, it won’t matter how loudly we knock.
And beyond that, we need to think bigger. It’s not just about resisting what’s being taken—it’s about shaping what comes next. Nobody fights against something; they fight *for* something. A future that isn’t just clawing back what was lost, but building something stronger, something that can’t be so easily dismantled. That’s what people need to see. A vision of where we go from here, what we’re working toward, what’s possible if we refuse to let them decide the future for us.
So in Texas your place you get your DL has an interagency agreement with the state vital records where they tap into our system and can see the birth certificate because they are all imaged. We did this before they were imaged also.
The Secretary of State handles our voting registration and we are actually enrolled when you get your DL they have you fill out the form there.
If you have had a new DL in the last two years you have the little gold emblem on there showing you have been verified.
In Texas we are huge on voter suppression. There is now a bill filed In the legislature that to vote in your parties primary you have had to have voted in two other elections in a row to be eligible.
I have reached out to someone at the SOS office that is a friend to see what they’re thinking of doing to handle this BS. This a whole lot of work to do.
Food stamps and Medicaid finally went to interviews over the phone or on video and you just upload your documents into our system on your account and you can watch it as it goes through the process to certificate and get email updates. It was unfair to ask someone to take off work catch a bus if you don’t have a car and get to the office and sit then have your interview and then wait for a bus to get home most likely praying you get there before your kids get home from school.
All of this can be done electronically if they wanted to put in site it will be as difficult as possible
Fay, since writing my comments, I have read deeper into this, and this was already law in the last election. Lorissa might not have stated all the facts of that law correctly. From my American friends, I have been told that you were urged repeatedly to apply for a REAL ID license or identity card. That is actually the standard here in Germany, and yes, we have also been asked to update our documents. That in itself is not discrimination of any kind. Every American citizen can still apply for them until May 7, 2025. After that, you will be able to vote by presenting a REAL ID, a military ID, a tribal ID, or a passport.
Only if you have none of these will you need to bring additional documents, and even then, you will not be excluded. Many papers are still accepted—like birth certificates showing a U.S. birthplace, and if your name has changed due to marriage, divorce, or other reasons, those documents as well. Frankly, in Germany, you would also need to present them when applying for a new identity card. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Yes, the people in power may still try to exclude voters in other ways, and they might even push to revoke amendments that grant certain groups the right to vote. But that has not happened yet. This is why clarity is so important. The fear is real, but so is the need to distinguish between immediate threats and anticipated ones. If fear takes over, it leads to reaction instead of strategy. The best way to counter it is to look at what is actually happening right now and act accordingly.
TRhan you have not read the law: “(b) Documentary proof of United States citizenship.—As used in this Act, the term ‘documentary proof of United States citizenship’ means, with respect to an applicant for voter registration, any of the following:
“(1) A form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States.
If speaking to me it says above & in the Act (it is not law yet, only passed by house) it says “identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID”. It does not say REAL ID. Itself.
Is this really true? I am an Asian American woman who did not change her last name. But my maga female in laws have all changed their last names. I need to know it’s truth so I can shove it in their faces.
And not just women. People in rural areas who cannot register in person. Overseas voters who cannot register in person. This, if passed, is the mechanism to allow a sham election that looks like a "real" election. On the surface, it's blatantly unconstitutional because it amounts to a poll tax. But if the last week has shown us anything, it's that the current incarnation of the GOP is happy to tear up the Constitution as long as it's working in their favor.
I agree. It seems like the Save Act would go against the 19th amendment (giving women the right to vote) and 24th amendment (banning poll taxes) since anyone who changed their name would have to pay for a passport to prove their identity in order to vote.
Ironically, this could lead to feminists being more likely to be able to vote than non feminists since presumably fewer of us changed our names. I am one of only a few women I know who didn’t change my name…I always wonder why it is so common to change one’s name when it is so much easier not to.
Yes but it would disproportionately effect women of color who are more likely to change their names. I (a white woman) and my husband (a white man) both changed our names to hyphen of both our names so our children would have the same names as we did, which has always been important to me.
And then there’s this ny times article from 2023 with different stats. “Immigrants to the United States and Black and Hispanic women are less likely to take a spouse's name. Eighty-six percent of white women did, Pew found, compared with 73 percent of Black women and 60 percent of Hispanic women. (It is customary to keep one's name in many Spanish-speaking countries.)”
Sort of…depends on what you mean by women of color. 30% of Hispanic women keep their names, vs 10% of white women and 9% of black women. So there’s not a huge difference between black women and white women. (From a PEW study)
The Save Act is horrible because it will make it harder for people to vote, because getting ID can be time consuming and expensive. This article and the CAP article it quotes, however, are misleading. To get a real ID you have to provide a passport (plus other documents to prove state residency) OR a birth certificate AND if your legal name does not match your birth certificate, proof of marriage, adoption, divorce, etc. Saying that this act will disenfranchise anyone who has had a name change is fear mongering and really not helpful to efforts to preserve voting rights. Go to your states’s Real ID website to confirm what documentation is necessary.
I'm a middle class hyper educated white cis woman. In other words, privileged AF. My passport doesn't match my drivers license which doesn't match my birth certificate which doesn't match my marriage certificate - which I don't have cause who cares and how long does it take to get and how much and how? and what if I don't get it before the next election? And what if I get it and lose it because I have two kids and lose stuff all the time? And! I just tried to get my REAL ID which asked for my name as it is on my birth certificate and / or passport but said nothing of my marriage certificate. So what now?
And what if you're a single mom without access to the internet at home? How's she going to sort all this out?
I appreciate your reply but it's not easy, it's not simple, and it's not meant to be. It's meant to be confusing and scary and expensive.
Genuine question (and thank you for linking to the bill). When I read it, it lists the first “documentary proof” as a REAL ID. But that other “valid government-issued photo ID” would require showing a birth certificate as well. So I think we’re safe with a REAL ID? No?
As a lawyer what I see here is an opportunity for Resistance. If this goes through, I will be changing my name back to the one on my birth certificate (which I don't love). I will then move a great deal of my business over to doing this for other women. I can't do anything about the (approximately, depending on county) $300 in court fees, and I still have to pay my own bills, but if the client is actually indigent, we can get that waived and do that pro bono. We overwhelm the family courts with these things. They will almost certainly allow people to do this. The judges will hate it. But really, they let people change their names pretty much on a whim as long as it's not to hide from the law or defraud your creditors.
Also, this likely means that women will stop changing their names when they marry, or at least liberal and centrist women will. Which takes conservative women off the voter rolls, I guess?
These people are absolutely shit at imagining their unintended consequences. Let's do that thinking for them and shove it down their throats.
Wouldn’t this also affect anyone who has changed their name for reasons other than marriage (I’ve known a few) and of course our trans friends? I’m sure that’s just an extra bonus for them 😡
Question: should I call my female house rep and ask her why she voted to pass this?
Yes. Please do. You can also ask her why she wanted to make it harder for you as a woman and citizen to vote. Also, at the end of the article, I provide a number of ice breakers and talking points that you might want to use when chatting with your community.
Thank you for your engagement!
Your icebreakers really are great! Thank you so much- I’ll be making a lot more noise! ☺️
awww! Thank you so much!! I am so grateful you found them helpful.
Jay, what makes it discriminatory is the cost and the effort to obtain the proof. Poor people have many obstacles to being able to prove citizenship. It could be that records can be requested online, but one would have to have access to internet. Poor people disproportionately do not. This leaves going in person to request the records, that unless you live within walking distance, you'll need transportation. Often the location for these offices are not convenient to where people go. Like shopping districts, or city centers, or near schools or libraries....
These sorts of requirements were found to disproportionately prohibitive to the poor as a way to suppress their right to vote. These types of laws were used in the south to keep people of color from being able to vote. During the civil rights era, the supreme Court ruled it prohibitive forcing states to remove the requirement. They also added additional monitoring on states that had done this to ensure that voting wasn't being suppressed. Recently, the supreme court has removed many of the requirements and all of the monitoring from those states.
If they really wanted everyone to have this sort of ID so they could vote, they would make the id free, and they would set up popup tents in poor neighborhoods so it would be accessible. The truth is, they don't, they want to suppress voting so they can be in control.
This!
first of all, stop ASKING for parity. We ARE equal, and more. Be assertive and not in a nice way. This takes practice, a mindset of supplicancy can be changed.
Love this. Absolutely correct!
Even JD Vance has changed his legal name from what appears on his birth certificate… twice!
Addendum:
Looking at this again, I see that I didn’t examine the full scope of the issue before commenting. In hindsight, I would have approached this differently. While the REAL ID requirement itself isn’t new and does not directly remove voting rights, the broader context matters. Bureaucracy has always been used as a tool to make voting harder for specific groups, and this law—while not outright disenfranchisement—creates additional hurdles that disproportionately affect women, especially those who have changed their names.
I still believe clarity is essential. Fear can lead to overgeneralization, but at the same time, minimizing how these measures function within a larger strategy of voter suppression is just as dangerous. It’s not just about what’s on paper—it’s about how laws like this play out in practice.
I stand by the need to address what is happening now, while also keeping a sharp eye on where this could lead. The fight is not just against restrictive policies but for a system where voting is accessible to all. That remains unchanged.
Original Reply:
Lorissa, I’m sitting here in Germany, watching this unfold with a mix of disbelief and complete clarity. The SAVE Act isn’t just another hurdle—it’s a deliberate and calculated move to strip away voting rights, targeting women in particular.
And unfortunately, I saw this coming. It was consequential. The pattern has been clear for a long time—control over bodies, control over votes, control over power. First, they came for reproductive rights. Now, they’re coming for political agency itself. Step by step, they tighten their grip, making sure that those most likely to resist are silenced before they can even cast a ballot.
The sheer audacity of it is staggering. They know exactly what they’re doing, setting up barriers that will disproportionately affect the very people most likely to vote against them. No need to repeal the 19th when they can simply make it nearly impossible for millions of women to vote in the first place. And they’re counting on bureaucracy, cost, and confusion to do their work for them.
Your call to action is essential. It’s not enough to be outraged—we have to make sure this conversation reaches every woman who will be impacted. Not months from now. Now. Before it’s too late.
Thank you so much for your engagement and insights. You really laid out the problem- and their plan - so articulately. We need more voices like yours lighting up these dark times.
Lorissa, I appreciate that. The more we expose their strategy, the harder it becomes for them to hide behind bureaucracy and manufactured chaos. They count on people underestimating them, assuming these measures are just administrative hurdles rather than deliberate tools of disenfranchisement. But this isn’t subtle. It’s systematic.
Women—especially those who have changed their names—are being targeted with surgical precision. It’s voter suppression dressed up as election security, just like every other attempt to make democracy harder for those who stand in their way. And the worst part? They know most people won’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late.
That’s why this conversation matters. Not just between us, but everywhere, with everyone who will listen. Because once the doors are locked, it won’t matter how loudly we knock.
And beyond that, we need to think bigger. It’s not just about resisting what’s being taken—it’s about shaping what comes next. Nobody fights against something; they fight *for* something. A future that isn’t just clawing back what was lost, but building something stronger, something that can’t be so easily dismantled. That’s what people need to see. A vision of where we go from here, what we’re working toward, what’s possible if we refuse to let them decide the future for us.
So in Texas your place you get your DL has an interagency agreement with the state vital records where they tap into our system and can see the birth certificate because they are all imaged. We did this before they were imaged also.
The Secretary of State handles our voting registration and we are actually enrolled when you get your DL they have you fill out the form there.
If you have had a new DL in the last two years you have the little gold emblem on there showing you have been verified.
In Texas we are huge on voter suppression. There is now a bill filed In the legislature that to vote in your parties primary you have had to have voted in two other elections in a row to be eligible.
I have reached out to someone at the SOS office that is a friend to see what they’re thinking of doing to handle this BS. This a whole lot of work to do.
Food stamps and Medicaid finally went to interviews over the phone or on video and you just upload your documents into our system on your account and you can watch it as it goes through the process to certificate and get email updates. It was unfair to ask someone to take off work catch a bus if you don’t have a car and get to the office and sit then have your interview and then wait for a bus to get home most likely praying you get there before your kids get home from school.
All of this can be done electronically if they wanted to put in site it will be as difficult as possible
Women in America do not have equal rights. That's why they're able to pass such BS laws against us.
We need the ERA added to our constitution.
Fay, since writing my comments, I have read deeper into this, and this was already law in the last election. Lorissa might not have stated all the facts of that law correctly. From my American friends, I have been told that you were urged repeatedly to apply for a REAL ID license or identity card. That is actually the standard here in Germany, and yes, we have also been asked to update our documents. That in itself is not discrimination of any kind. Every American citizen can still apply for them until May 7, 2025. After that, you will be able to vote by presenting a REAL ID, a military ID, a tribal ID, or a passport.
Only if you have none of these will you need to bring additional documents, and even then, you will not be excluded. Many papers are still accepted—like birth certificates showing a U.S. birthplace, and if your name has changed due to marriage, divorce, or other reasons, those documents as well. Frankly, in Germany, you would also need to present them when applying for a new identity card. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
Yes, the people in power may still try to exclude voters in other ways, and they might even push to revoke amendments that grant certain groups the right to vote. But that has not happened yet. This is why clarity is so important. The fear is real, but so is the need to distinguish between immediate threats and anticipated ones. If fear takes over, it leads to reaction instead of strategy. The best way to counter it is to look at what is actually happening right now and act accordingly.
A REAL ID is not eligible proof of citizenship for the SAVE Act
TRhan you have not read the law: “(b) Documentary proof of United States citizenship.—As used in this Act, the term ‘documentary proof of United States citizenship’ means, with respect to an applicant for voter registration, any of the following:
“(1) A form of identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates the applicant is a citizen of the United States.
If speaking to me it says above & in the Act (it is not law yet, only passed by house) it says “identification issued consistent with the requirements of the REAL ID”. It does not say REAL ID. Itself.
And I agree-we have numbers, resources and smarts in our side. Resistance will crush p2025
Is this really true? I am an Asian American woman who did not change her last name. But my maga female in laws have all changed their last names. I need to know it’s truth so I can shove it in their faces.
Yes. It is true. Let them know that they voted for their own disenfranchisement. And also, you are awesome.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-would-disenfranchise-millions-of-citizens/
Holy shit but thank you for answering. Question, how are they verifying your name with the birth certificate? Where’s the match?
If your name doesn’t match - like mine - then it’s not considered valid and you would need a passport with your legal name.
And not just women. People in rural areas who cannot register in person. Overseas voters who cannot register in person. This, if passed, is the mechanism to allow a sham election that looks like a "real" election. On the surface, it's blatantly unconstitutional because it amounts to a poll tax. But if the last week has shown us anything, it's that the current incarnation of the GOP is happy to tear up the Constitution as long as it's working in their favor.
I agree. It seems like the Save Act would go against the 19th amendment (giving women the right to vote) and 24th amendment (banning poll taxes) since anyone who changed their name would have to pay for a passport to prove their identity in order to vote.
Ironically, this could lead to feminists being more likely to be able to vote than non feminists since presumably fewer of us changed our names. I am one of only a few women I know who didn’t change my name…I always wonder why it is so common to change one’s name when it is so much easier not to.
Yes but it would disproportionately effect women of color who are more likely to change their names. I (a white woman) and my husband (a white man) both changed our names to hyphen of both our names so our children would have the same names as we did, which has always been important to me.
In addition, I’ve always thought it makes more sense for the kids to have the woman’s last name.
And then there’s this ny times article from 2023 with different stats. “Immigrants to the United States and Black and Hispanic women are less likely to take a spouse's name. Eighty-six percent of white women did, Pew found, compared with 73 percent of Black women and 60 percent of Hispanic women. (It is customary to keep one's name in many Spanish-speaking countries.)”
Sort of…depends on what you mean by women of color. 30% of Hispanic women keep their names, vs 10% of white women and 9% of black women. So there’s not a huge difference between black women and white women. (From a PEW study)
I love you are calling this out.💯
Thank you! We’ve got to stay together.
The Save Act is horrible because it will make it harder for people to vote, because getting ID can be time consuming and expensive. This article and the CAP article it quotes, however, are misleading. To get a real ID you have to provide a passport (plus other documents to prove state residency) OR a birth certificate AND if your legal name does not match your birth certificate, proof of marriage, adoption, divorce, etc. Saying that this act will disenfranchise anyone who has had a name change is fear mongering and really not helpful to efforts to preserve voting rights. Go to your states’s Real ID website to confirm what documentation is necessary.
I'm a middle class hyper educated white cis woman. In other words, privileged AF. My passport doesn't match my drivers license which doesn't match my birth certificate which doesn't match my marriage certificate - which I don't have cause who cares and how long does it take to get and how much and how? and what if I don't get it before the next election? And what if I get it and lose it because I have two kids and lose stuff all the time? And! I just tried to get my REAL ID which asked for my name as it is on my birth certificate and / or passport but said nothing of my marriage certificate. So what now?
And what if you're a single mom without access to the internet at home? How's she going to sort all this out?
I appreciate your reply but it's not easy, it's not simple, and it's not meant to be. It's meant to be confusing and scary and expensive.
REAL ID is not eligible proof of citizenship for the save act. Some docs to get a Real ID are. You need to read the act carefully.
Genuine question (and thank you for linking to the bill). When I read it, it lists the first “documentary proof” as a REAL ID. But that other “valid government-issued photo ID” would require showing a birth certificate as well. So I think we’re safe with a REAL ID? No?
You’re real ID may or may not have your legal name. I got mine before I got married and it therefore doesn’t have my legal name.
REAL ID is not eligible proof of citizenship for the save act. Some docs to get a Real ID are. You need to read the act carefully.
REAL ID is not eligible proof of citizenship for the save act. Some docs to get a Real ID are. You need to read the act carefully.
The oligarchy on the left center, and right wasn’t going to allow a woman, much less a black woman, to win.
Great post!! Thank you!
So glad you found it informative!
As a lawyer what I see here is an opportunity for Resistance. If this goes through, I will be changing my name back to the one on my birth certificate (which I don't love). I will then move a great deal of my business over to doing this for other women. I can't do anything about the (approximately, depending on county) $300 in court fees, and I still have to pay my own bills, but if the client is actually indigent, we can get that waived and do that pro bono. We overwhelm the family courts with these things. They will almost certainly allow people to do this. The judges will hate it. But really, they let people change their names pretty much on a whim as long as it's not to hide from the law or defraud your creditors.
Also, this likely means that women will stop changing their names when they marry, or at least liberal and centrist women will. Which takes conservative women off the voter rolls, I guess?
These people are absolutely shit at imagining their unintended consequences. Let's do that thinking for them and shove it down their throats.
Wouldn’t this also affect anyone who has changed their name for reasons other than marriage (I’ve known a few) and of course our trans friends? I’m sure that’s just an extra bonus for them 😡