Married women could face new obstacles to vote. This is what conservatives want.

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Married women could face new obstacles to vote. This is what conservatives want.

Despite a lifetime of

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, I am in the

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who chose to keep my maiden name when I got married.

It was less of a feminist act and more that, by the time I got married, I was in my mid-30s and had an established public-facing career. It felt weird to be that late in life and adopt, let alone publicize, a new identity. My husband didn’t care one way or another, so I saved myself from the painstaking paperwork of changing my last name.

What I didn’t realize was that I might have also

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SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise married women

The SAVE Act would require Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport or some other gold-tier citizenship document every time they register to vote. This could exclude up to 69 million married American women whose legal name does not match that of her birth certificate.

Congressional Republicans are fast-tracking the

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, a bill that requires Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport or some other gold-tier citizenship document every time they register to vote – all under the guise of ensuring that only U.S. citizens are voting.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, isn’t it already ******** for noncitizens to vote?” – yes, yes it is. And if you’re wondering how often this actually happens, it’s about as common as

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. It happened once, but definitely not a trend.

Per the Brennan Center for Justice, a retrospective of the 2016 election found

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of the 23.5 million votes cast across the 42 jurisdictions they surveyed. But sure, let’s make it harder for actual citizens to vote.

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This legislation is intended to make it more difficult for most eligible American citizens to register and cast a ballot. And as you’d expect, voting and civil rights activists are sounding alarms.

But who does this bill hurt the most?

The

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who changed their surname after marriage. Because the bill fixates on birth certificates matching voter registrations but doesn’t consider

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According to the Center for American Progress, this could exclude

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whose legal name does not match that of her birth certificate.

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For the millions of married women who don’t have a passport, they would need to hunt down their birth certificate, marriage license and ID, then show up in person just to update their voter registration. I don’t even know where my birth certificate is. Do you?

And guess which states have the fewest passports and the most married name-changers? Deep red states. So yes, this could disproportionately disenfranchise Republican women. But I don’t want any woman disenfranchised, because women’s suffrage is a slippery slope.

Conservatives who believe women shouldn’t have the right to vote

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/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

A mural honors women voters on Oct. 14, 2024, in Erie, Pa.

Yes, the slope of a woman’s right to vote.

The bill’s author, Rep. Chip Roy R-Texas, might have

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these concerns as “absurd armchair speculation,” but the lack of nuance in this bill feels like a nod to the folks who would like to see

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repealed. This isn’t just some conspiracy theory. Plenty of conservatives have openly said that they don’t think women should vote:

Remember when people told us we were crazy for saying Roe v. Wade could be overturned? That it would never happen? That we were being hysterical?

Now we have a bill that – whether by incompetence or design – could make voting much harder for millions of women. But sure, let’s pretend the rollbacks stop here. It’s not like an entire political faction in our body politic is openly nostalgic for the days before women could vote.

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Every time I hear someone say, “Oh, that could never happen here,” I think about that photo –

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. Before religious fundamentalists took over and erased their rights.

Losing rights doesn’t happen in one big, dramatic moment. It happens in a slow drip of bad policies, restrictive laws and people not taking the threat seriously until it’s too late.

If you don’t know where your birth certificate is, you might want to find it. Because apparently, that – not your decades of tax returns, Social Security number or literal existence as a person – is what the SAVE Act says proves you’re an American.

And if this passes, I hope you really love your last name. Because changing it could cost you more than just paperwork.

Kristin Brey is the “My Take” columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

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#Married #women #face #obstacles #vote #conservatives

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