The SAVE Act passed the House on Feb. 11, 2026 by a vote of 218-213 and is now in the Senate awaiting a vote. Voting is expected to take place next week, according to Thune. If and when it passes the Senate, it will go to the president for a final signature.
Will SAVE Act Prevent Married Women from Registering to Vote?
Posted on February 28, 2025
Q: Is it true that under the SAVE Act married women will not be able to register to vote if their married name doesn’t match their birth certificate?
A: The proposed SAVE Act instructs states to establish a process for people whose legal name doesn’t match their birth certificate to provide additional documents. But voting rights advocates say that married women and others who have changed their names may face difficulty when registering because of the ambiguity in the bill over what documents may be accepted.
If your name doesn’t match what’s on your birth certificate, look into whether your state allows you to change your birth certificate and do it before it’s too late. My name is not my birth name or my married name, I had it legally changed. I got tired of hauling around my birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce paperwork, and legal name change to show the paper trail that I both was who I was and was no longer legally married. Turns out in my state I just had to send in a notarized form, copies of my paperwork and pay small fee and I got my birth certificate updated to my current name. Now I can “prove” who I am by just showing my birth certificate and ignore the fact that I was married and changed my name. It also made updating my passport easier. Granted, I am not trans, but I did it last year and they had the option to change gender on the form.
How isn’t showing your passport sufficient evidence to tell you are who you tell you are?
Not everyone has their passport. If you do, that should be sufficient. It also made updating my passport easier, way less paperwork to send in. I’d never gotten around to updating my passport to the correct name and it was much less paperwork to send in.