The SAVE Act Could Make It Harder for Women to Vote—Here’s How
- Pam Williams
- 24 hours ago
- 3 min read
Written by: Pam Williams
I got my Real ID when they first came out in 2010, and boy was it a pain. I had to prove that I had been married for 18 years. I got married in southern Indiana but I had just moved to Wisconsin with my then finance. I changed my last name to my husband’s while living in Wisconsin. Years later, we moved back to Indiana and had been living in the Indianapolis metro area for years. When we got married, we weren’t given a legal copy of our marriage certificate. What I thought was our legal copy was actually a souvenir copy. Funny enough, every government agency accepted it as legal proof of our marriage. I didn’t get a legal copy of our marriage certificate until I needed it to prove that I was legally married for health insurance reasons.
Now, with the SAVE Act of 2025 in congress, I thought that my Real ID met the requirements in the bill to register to vote. After all, when I got that ID, I had to prove my last name change from my maiden name to my married name.
I was wrong.
Per H.R. 22 or the SAVE Act of 2025, to register to vote, you must present "documentary proof of United States citizenship." This is followed by a list of documents that provide your proof of citizenship and Real ID is listed as one of the documents. But here’s the kicker for your Indiana Real ID: ”(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.”
Indiana’s Real ID does NOT indicate your citizenship status. It only indicates that you are in the United States legally. With Indiana’s Real ID, you will need to present your birth certificate and a legal picture ID to register to vote. AND your last name must match in both documents.
This will impact married women disproportionately. When registering to vote, they will be required to:
Prove they were born as a US citizen.
Show legal documents with their name change (Social Security Card doesn’t work).
Show a valid government ID with a picture.
Without this string of legal documents, they will not be able to register to vote.
If the SAVE Act passes, do we have to re-register to vote?
In the bill, the state is held responsible for confirming the registered voters’ status. Paragraph 3 of the bill says that states are required to verify that all registered voters are citizens of the United States within 30 days of the bill becoming a law. They are given four sources that can be used to verify the voters’ citizenship:
Department of Homeland Security data
Social Security Administration through the Social Security Number Verification
The state’s DMV if they confirm the citizenship status when issuing the ID card or driver’s license
Other sources which confirm the individual’s citizenship status
Indiana SHOULD be able to use the third method since you are required to prove your citizenship and all legal name changes to get your Indiana ID.
But the real answer is, “I don’t know.” Indiana could elect to purge voter rolls and have everyone reregister. Or Indiana could use one of the methods above to validate the voter rolls.
The only thing we do know is that the public reason for the bill is to reduce voter fraud. But since 2003, there have only been 59 cases of voter fraud in Indiana. You can check out those and other states on this Election Fraud map. Given that statistic and the impact to married women, I personally have a hard time believing that they are only targeting fraud.