This column first appeared in The Amendment, a newsletter by Errin Haines, The 19th’s editor-at-large. Subscribe today to get early access to her analysis.
When the president and congressional Republicans proposed the SAVE America Act, they argued the legislation was meant to strengthen voter protections.
The bill requires proof of citizenship — such as a passport or birth certificate — to register to vote, despite the fact that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal or state elections.
The SAVE America Act passed in the House last month but currently lacks the votes to pass in the Senate. In a Truth Social post Sunday, President Donald Trump threatened to refuse to sign any other legislation until the SAVE America Act is passed.
For months, the bill has evoked a visceral reaction from many American women who see the bill as a threat to their right to vote. Voting rights activists and advocates point out that it could disenfranchise millions of them — particularly married women, who could have a harder time registering to vote if they changed their names.
For them, the SAVE America Act — an earlier version was called just the SAVE Act — feels like a personal attack, said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, president of the nonprofit, grassroots organization Moms Rising, which focuses on policies benefiting women and families.
“We’re hearing from our members in every state in the nation that they are incredibly insulted by and upset about the SAVE Act,” Rowe-Finkbeiner said, adding that nearly 50,000 of the organization’s members are calling their senators to urge them to vote against the bill, marking “record high action rates.”
(DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images)
“They’re standing up for their right to vote,” she added. “Moms across the country see the SAVE Act specifically as an attack on women and moms, because the people who change their names the most over their lifetimes are moms as they get married.”
Republicans say the proposed law shouldn’t impact voting access and is aimed at making sure only American citizens are casting ballots and protecting election integrity. They say it’s meant to stop voter fraud — but there’s no indication that exists in any election-altering way.
If the SAVE America Act passes, it would add bureaucratic hurdles for people to register to vote. More than 21 million people do not have the necessary documents readily available, one study shows. People of color are also less likely to have the documentary proof of citizenship the law would require.
What makes the reaction to the bill notable is how personal it feels. Millions of women suddenly have seen themselves in a policy — and the effect it could have on their lives. And when a group of people can picture their own voting rights being affected, they can be moved to act.
Voting is the most direct way many Americans experience democracy. It is part of our national identity and an important way that many people think about what it means to belong to a community and a country.
Threats to ballot access make democracy personal — not just theoretical. Voting can become a kitchen-table priority.
“Voters are self-interested,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for Women and Politics. “Economics and dinner table issues are the most important thing to people because they’re asking, ‘Did this person or party in power make it easier or harder for me to pay my bills and take care of my family?’”
Dittmar likened it to the difference between an abstract conversation about the national gross domestic product versus the price of eggs. For voters, “when something affects my life and my rights, I’m going to be even more engaged and alert to those issues.”
The threat to voting rights and both the perceived and real threats to women’s ability to fully participate in democracy and society have translated into increased political participation in recent years.
In 2017, the Women’s March drew record protests across the country in response to Trump’s first election.
In 2020, attempts to curtail mail-in and dropbox voting during a global pandemic helped motivate voters who saw the move as an effort at voter suppression.
The 2022 Supreme Court decision that ended federal protections for abortion sent women to the polls in record numbers during the midterms as a way to express their outrage.
For historically marginalized groups, attempts to tighten voting rules can be seen as an attempt to rig the game. That feels not just un-American, but taps into our innate sense of unfairness and inequality at a human level. The act of voting itself can become as important as the choice of who to vote for — a form of civic self-defense.
It’s also a useful tool for organizers, a way to bring in people who may not have cared as much about voting — until they understand their right could be taken away.
“It activates and motivates the mobilizers,” said Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown. “People who are not paying attention to voting, it gets their attention. It takes us from 10 to 1,000.”
Black voters, who have been historically disenfranchised, understand policies like voter ID laws as oppression, Brown said.
While such laws are popular with many Americans, Black Americans are disproportionately impacted by them because they may lack a birth certificate or the ability to afford the steps to obtain identification. These laws are often passed after elections where there is increased participation among Black voters in particular.
“Whether it’s you trying to nullify my voice, you trying to deny me my agency, to have choice over my family and my conditions, you’re trying to silence what I want to say,” said Brown. “Starting from the democracy frame is in that America, patriotic paradigm … that’s real for a lot of folks, but our attachment isn’t based on us trying to hold up America. Our attachment is, ‘You’re oppressing me, you’re saying I don’t have a choice, you’re denying my humanity.’ It motivates us differently.”
It’s a feeling middle- and upper-class married White women may be confronting for the first time because of the SAVE America Act, Dittmar pointed out.
“So many of these policies normally target communities of color and their access,” Dittmar said. “You want them to see how this is a direct threat. If they are not persuaded by an argument for everyone, you have to make a connection to their own lives. Here in the SAVE Act, you can tell a story that is also about gender and women. … You can bring them into a conversation that, for some of these women, has been otherized.”
For most of our country’s history, women, enslaved Black people and others have echoed the language of the American Revolution to argue for their access to democracy.
With that push, much of America’s history has been about the expansion of rights, including voting rights.
Even so, voting rights remain a partisan, politicized and polarizing issue. But voters are not divided on whether their vote should count. Attempts to keep them from the ballot box often have the opposite effect, with people insisting to be heard. It is perhaps the oldest reflex in American democratic life.