House passes bill that could create voting barriers for married women
The measure would require proof of citizenship to vote, which experts say could pose issues for people who've changed their names.
Zachary SchermeleWASHINGTON – The Republican-led House of Representatives on Feb. 11 passed a bill favored by President Donald Trump to mandate proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
The bill, called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America, Act, would require voters show a government-issued photo ID to cast their ballots. Polling shows support for photo ID requirements in elections is widespread in both political parties.
Yet the measure would potentially prevent millions of Americans from voting, according to independent experts and voting rights groups. And it would create broadly defined criminal penalties for election officials who register voters that haven't adequately provided evidence of their citizenship.
The legislation faces an uncertain future in the GOP-controlled Senate, where 60 votes are needed for passage and other versions of the same legislation have already stalled.
If the bill, which Trump has indicated he would sign, fully passes, millions of women whose married names aren’t on their birth certificates or passports could face extra hurdles to register to vote and cast their ballots, according to the Brennan Center.
The success of the measure, which passed 218-213 in the House, underlined the need many GOP lawmakers still feel to address Trump's repeated concerns about election integrity, though his claims about widespread fraud in the U.S. are unfounded. The president recently called for "nationalizing" U.S. elections (the Constitution requires voting be handled at the state and local level).
The bill is teeing up another critical fight in the Senate over the chamber's 60-vote threshold, also known as the "filibuster." Conservative hardliners have advocated weakening the guardrail in order to fully pass the SAVE America Act.
But without the filibuster – which has already been considerably curtailed in notable ways by GOP lawmakers during Trump's second term – there would be little incentive for Republicans and Democrats to work together. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, has said many times publicly that there aren't enough votes among Senate Republicans to further weaken the filibuster.
Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.