Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana make it easy to register to vote by offering mail and online processes. Voter validation is required, and we know that voter fraud is miniscule here and everywhere.
If the SAVE Act, H.R. 22, passes in Congress, online and mail registration go away. Voter registration drives, like those run by the League of Women Voters, go away. With the SAVE Act trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist (proving citizenship before voting in a federal election — already the law) anyone wishing to register or change a voter registration will have to go in person with their birth certificate or passport (new Real IDs don’t qualify) to their Board of Elections office.
This includes:
- Married women whose married name doesn’t match their birth surname.
- Anyone else whose name was changed after birth.
- Anyone who moves and needs to update their address in their voter registration.
- Military voters who re-register to vote when their family moves. Service members would not be able to use their military ID alone to prove citizenship.
Consider these numbers when calculating the cost in time and travel to individuals and election board staff:
- 84% of women who marry change their surnames.
- Of the 153 million Americans who voted last fall, 95% did not own a valid passport.
- For the 2022 voting cycle, 1 million Americans registered or updated their voter registrations, with only 5.9% doing it in person. Is every state able to accommodate an additional average of 18,800 people coming in person each year to update their registrations?
- In Kentucky, flooding damaged 18,000 homes and businesses in 2022, and 750 more recently. Birth certificates lost in these tragedies would have to be replaced before those owners can vote again.
Similar state laws have been tested in Arizona, Alabama, Kansas and Georgia and were struck down because they prevented eligible voters from registering.
Let’s not make a working process less efficient and terribly costly. And let’s not disenfranchise American voters.
Contact your U.S. House and Senate representatives to voice your opposition to the SAVE Act. The Capitol switchboard phone numbers are House: 202-225-3121 and Senate: 202-224-3121.
The League of Women Voters is nonpartisan and never supports or opposes any political party or candidate. It encourages informed, active participation in government, especially through voting, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
This article appears in Mar 5-18, 2025.