84% of women change their last names to their husbands' when they get married. Most just start using their new surnames, maybe changing their drivers' licenses, using them on official documents; some go so far as to get new Social Security cards but many do not. Very few, though, if any, go through the trouble of getting their birth certificates updated with their new names.
Why would they? The name on a birth certificate is the name with which one was born. The name one adopts through marriage or changing legally is the name of that person at a particular stage in his/her/their life. 69 million women and one million men do not have birth certificates matching their present names.
No big deal, right?
Well, congressional republicans think it is, and they want to make sure that women--and men--who do not go through the trouble of obtaining new birth certificates reflecting their married names are stripped of their right to vote.
It's a new scheme in a long line of vote suppression efforts compliments of the political party whose sole winning strategy for the past four decades has been making it harder to engage with the most fundamental democratic act our country practices.
In July, House republicans passed the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Eligibility Act). If passed through the Senate and signed into law, it would require state boards of elections to ascertain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.
What's so wrong with that?
According to the legislation, the president of the United States--and only the president of the United States--would be in charge of enforcing it, stripping authority from the states that constitutionally are responsible for their own voter registration processes. A president who decides certain voters' registrations are "problematic" would demand r egistrations be "cured", and state authorities would have no say in it.
Lest a potential voter be subjected to this arbitrary "curing," the SAVE Act would require a passport or other proof of citizenship. In the event someone is unable to produce one of these (like the 146 million Americans without valid passports), he or she would be required to produce both an official birth certificate with the issuing state's seal (no copies) and a current form of identification.
And both must contain the exact same name.
If the birth certificate contains a maiden name but the person's driver's license has his or her married name, that person's opportunity to vote would be eliminated.
That would include about 90% of women without passports or other proof matching their birth certificates or proof of legal name change.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) explained:
Voter ID laws have a disproportionately negative effect on women. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage. Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband's last name.
That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents.
As NPR reported:
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