Member-only story
The Only Thing the S.A.V.E. Act Would Save is More Republican Victories
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.
