People voting in a New York polling station on November 6, 2018. ATILGAN OZDIL / ANADOLU VIA AFP
Married women who have changed their name, transgender people… For many of its opponents, the SAVE America Act proposed by Donald Trump to “secure” elections in the United States could in fact be an obstacle to voting for millions of voters.
Adopted narrowly by the House of Representatives last month, the SAVE America Act is currently being studied in the American Senate. Its stated goal: to reduce electoral fraud. The text will require voters in the future to provide a document proving their American citizenship to register to vote – such as a birth certificate or passport – and to present identification when voting, such as a driver’s license.
However, in the United States, there is no national identity card and in several states, a simple student ID can serve as identification. People whose name does not match the one on their birth certificate will therefore need to present additional documents, such as a marriage certificate or divorce decree, to justify their name change.
At the heart of concerns among opponents of the text are the most affected voters: “women, transgender people” and low-income individuals, who “cannot afford a passport and do not travel,” according to Rick Hasen, a professor of electoral law at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
A law to “secure the midterms” for Republicans, Trump rejoices
Letitia Harmon, research director at Florida Rising, a social justice organization based in Florida, summarized her difficulties with AFP: she was married, then divorced in Washington state. “The problem is that I don’t know what name is on the voter rolls in Florida,” she said. “I don’t know if they have my maiden name” or “married name.” And “if this name does not match the one on my driver’s license, they will tell me: ‘We cannot confirm your citizenship because your documents do not match,'” she anticipates. “So I should request my divorce decree from the state of Washington.” A costly and time-consuming process.
The White House ardently defends the SAVE America Act as a solution to electoral fraud. Married women who have changed their name “simply have to follow their state’s procedures to update these documents,” said Karoline Leavitt, its spokesperson, in March.
Donald Trump, however, does not hide his motivations: he has been ramping up pressure on Republican legislators for months, ensuring that this bill was the “number one priority.” If it were to pass, he asserted, “it will guarantee us the ‘midterms,'” the midterm elections scheduled for next November. The American president has been raising the specter of massive fraud organized by Democrats since 2020, especially by mobilizing undocumented immigrants to influence elections. Accusations for which he has never provided tangible evidence, but which still support his call for the SAVE Act vote.
For its opponents, this text exists solely to ensure the victory of the Republicans by alienating a usually Democratic electorate – according to the Pew Research Center, in 2024, 44% of women registered to vote leaned Republican, compared to 52% of men.
Moreover, as highlighted by the New York Times, electoral fraud by non-citizens is already illegal in the United States – and extremely rare. An investigation by the Washington Post revealed in 2016, 31 confirmed cases of identity theft between 2000 and 2014 in the context of elections, out of more than a billion votes.
