How does a proposed bill in Congress designed to “keep non-legal immigrants” from voting, hurt so many of us?

The Save Act bill, or Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, on its surface, doesn’t appear overly restrictive. It requires voters to submit proof of citizenship. Sounds reasonable, right?

Wrong. It hurts women like me. And so many others.

What forms of citizenship proof are accepted?

What counts as proof of citizenship? Social Security cards, passports, birth certificates. Each accompanied by a REAL ID or driver’s license.

Here’s the problem. Your name has to match on all the documents you show.

There are many of us whose current IDs, Such as a driver’s license or REAL ID, do not match our birth certificate. Sometimes our current IDs don’t match our social security numbers or our passports.

Those of us with these issues aren’t trying to pull a fast one, hide from the government, or vote without being citizens. We simply have different names from our birth certificate, due to marriage, divorce, or a change of name for any other reason, such as being transgender.

Both my sisters have legally changed part of their names to names they chose. If they didn’t have passports, and had to use their birth certificates, their current IDs wouldn’t match the birth certificates.

I kept my first husband’s name when we divorced. Since we married and divorced young, I have the same name on my Social Security card, passport and driver’s license. What if I couldn’t find my Social Security card, or didn’t have a passport? Then I’d have to use my birth certificate, which doesn’t match my current name.

Sorry, Carol. No voting for you.

The League of Women Voters is campaigning to stop the bill in the Senate. Here’s who they say will be adversely affected:

• Military Members: Services members would be required to present documentation every time they move and re-register to vote. Further, they would not be able to use their military ID alone to prove citizenship and would need additional documentation to show their birthplace or naturalization status.
• Natural Disaster Suvivors: Families impacted by natural disasters often lose important documentation. The SAVE Act would require them to jump through hoops to replace these documents and register to vote while also going through the traumatic process of rebuilding their lives.
• Women, Trans Voters, and Anyone with a Changed Name: Americans who have changed their name, like married women and members of the trans community, would also be required to secure updated documentation to register to vote. There are an estimated 69 million American women who lack paperwork that reflects their current name.
• Rural voters, Working Class Voters, Voters of Color, and Older Americans: These voters are less likely to hold a passport or readily available birth certificate.
• Tribal Citizens: Tribal voters would be unable to register using their Tribal ID alone. The SAVE Act would require Tribal ID to show the holder’s place of birth as the US, but most Tribal IDs do not list a place of birth.

That’s an awful lot of people who could and would be turned away at the voting booth.

“It’s unquestionably important that only eligible voters cast ballots in our elections — but it’s equally important that eligible voters aren’t hindered from voting because of needless paperwork.”

The U.S. has been on a trajectory of ensuring eligible voters can vote for many decades, accompanied by violence, oppression, and demands for voter rights

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

Women were granted the right to vote in the U.S. on August 18, 1920, with passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

Those simple declarations don’t tell the whole story.

For instance, the number of suffragettes who were jailed, fighting for the rights of women to vote. Women were arrested for trying to vote, and during protests. Many went on hunger strikes in jail and were force fed.

Rubber tubes were inserted through the mouth (only occasionally through the nose) and into the stomach, and food poured down; the suffragettes were held down by force while the instruments were inserted into their bodies, which has been likened to rape.[9]

Passage of the 15th amendment five years after the end of the Civil War still did not make it easy for Black men to vote. Freed slaves often had not been allowed to learn to read while enslaved. States who didn’t want them to vote, in spite of being legally allowed to, put literacy tests in place, requiring voters to be able to read and write in order to vote.

Next were poll taxes, money extracted at the voting site to keep people in poverty from voting. I witnessed this tactic as a child going to the polls with my mother in our small town in Texas. I remember her writing a check in order to be allowed to vote.

Jim Crow laws and systemic racism made it difficult for free Black people in the South to make enough money to pay poll taxes. Poor people of any ethnicity had difficulty paying poll taxes. No payment, no vote.

In other instances, Black people were turned away and even chased from the voting booth by the KKK and other racists.

These intimidation tactics continued until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law.

“It is wrong, deadly wrong, to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of states rights or national rights, there is only the struggle for human rights.”– President Lyndon B. Johnson (1965)

Many sacrifices were made during the Civil Rights Movement, some equally as violent as the force-feeding of suffragettes, and the beatings of Black people who tried to vote.

Senator John Lewis, he who advised creating “Good Trouble”, was savagely beaten as a young man, and the Freedom bus he was riding with other Freedom Riders was set on fire.

Martin Luther King, Jr. shared a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama with 55 other peaceful protestors, who had been beaten and manhandled into the cell where they were all crammed in together in a space meant for far fewer people.

The Children’s Crusade began shortly after. I had the joy of meeting one of the people who was in the Children’s Crusade when I was in Birmingham on business. He told me they had a preordained time when they all walked out of school and began peaceful protest marches down the streets of Birmingham. They were met with violence.

On May 2, 1963, more than one thousand students skipped classes and gathered at 16th Street Baptist Church to march to downtown Birmingham, Alabama. As they approached police lines, hundreds were arrested and carried off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. When hundreds more young people gathered the following day for another march, white commissioner, Bull Connor, directed the local police and fire departments to use force to halt the demonstration. Images of children being blasted by high-pressure fire hoses, being clubbed by police officers, and being attacked by police dogs appeared on television and in newspapers, and triggered outrage throughout the world.

The outrage fueled the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Finally, every citizen in the U.S. was able to vote. Slow, bloody progress had been made.

Until now

Now Congress is saying the quiet part out loud. They want to pass a law, ostensibly to allow only citizens to vote, while making proving that citizenship difficult for many, many voters. Too many.

Just as was done with poll taxes, literacy tests, and outright intimidation at the polls. Congress wants only certain people to vote, and not others, even if they are citizens. Specifically, white men who aren’t elderly, disabled, rural, or in the military. Not women with married names, Trans people, or poor people.

Those of us with these issues aren’t trying to pull a fast one, hide from the government, or vote without being citizens.

The current President is asking Texas to gerrymander voting districts, in order to weaken the votes of POC and keep the Republicans in the majority in Congress.

Texas, Ohio, and Alabama have restricted mail-in voting and eliminated or restricted drive-through and curbside voting.

Curbside voting in Texas allowed me to vote in elections while recovering from two broken ankles. Without it, I would have needed a wheelchair and someone to help me in and out of the polling location. Both cumbersome and painful. I would have done it though, to exercise my voting rights.

These are the reasons the SAVE Act must not pass in the Senate. Call and write your Senators today. You can use the app and website 5Calls.

If it does pass? Let’s get busy helping people get the right documentation.

Just in case I need bail, while causing Good Trouble, you can contribute to that fund here. https://ko-fi.com/carolsantafe