It’s been very, very cold here at 45 degrees north. Cold enough to freeze water pipes, and then some. Once those pipes are frozen, people don’t always make the best choices about how to thaw them. Sometimes their choices end up setting their home on fire.
For those still trying to fathom why so many rural people voted for the current administration, try thinking of their situation like frozen pipes: They had problems. They wanted them fixed. They made choices. Their choices have consequences. Those consequences affect all of us and will for years to come.
When it feels like democracy is fully engulfed, it’s way too late to repeat that they should have let their faucets drip. That’s not to say we shouldn’t look back at how we got here. But the challenge now is ahead of us. All of us, but maybe especially women voters.
That’s why I planned to write about my concerns regarding the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) – proposed federal legislation with proof of citizenship requirements that could affect the voting rights of married women who take their husband’s last name. Women like me.
SAVE was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives early last year. But as we know from Schoolhouse Rock, a bill does not become a law until it passes both houses of Congress and is signed by the president. And SAVE has been stalled in the Senate.
In this era of performative politics, it’s hard to know which legislative actions are credible threats and which are useful distractions. The primary purpose of too much proposed legislation is to engage and enrage opponents and draw attention away from an upcoming blind side hit.
That pattern has the added benefit of normalizing the notion that government doesn’t work. The strategy is particularly effective at turning eligible voters into non-voters. It’s part of the package that includes normalizing distrust in election security. Amplify that with AI disinformation, and you have a dandy model for monetizing paralytic outrage.
That leaves many of us who love our country wishing for a Magic 8 Ball to guide us: Will SAVE pass the Senate? Will the answer be You may rely on it or Very doubtful? Or, like most real problems facing us, is the situation hazy?
I default to it’s better to be prepared than to wish I had. That’s common, I think, among rural women. We live where there are no quick trips to town, and snail mail takes at least an extra day to enter the mail stream. Not leaving things to the last minute becomes a habit.
So, I planned to write about citizenship ID for voting and how people whose surnames have changed can be prepared in time to avoid problems at the polls in case SAVE becomes law.
My own legal name has not matched my birth certificate since 1979: I was married, then divorced, then married again. I presented documents to prove my identity when I got a passport, and when I upgraded my state-issued driver’s license to one that is REAL ID-compliant.
I have not changed my address in 38 years and have no plans to do so now. But my address was redistricted in 2022. That didn’t mean I had to re-register to vote. But what if, in the future, redistricting did require re-registering? I could show up to re-register with what is currently an acceptable state-issued ID and be denied because my ID doesn’t match my birth certificate. Or re-register and show up to vote, but because the name on the poll book doesn’t match the name on my REAL ID and passport, be denied a ballot and required to re-register – again.
Sure, I could be prepared (at every election) to present all the documents that link my various aliases (if that’s what we’re calling marital name changes these days). As a poll worker in a small rural municipality, I could be required to inspect a trail of paperwork for every woman who ever changed her name. As a voter, I’m not willing to risk the loss of original documents. So I am ordering certified copies. Multiple copies. From four municipalities in two states.
To make matters more confusing, when I married the first time, I changed my middle name from the one my mother thought was pretty to the initial of my birth surname. It was easy peasy, at that time, to make that change on my Social Security account. Much easier, in fact, than getting a credit card in my own name or getting a loan without a male cosigner.
Now I wish I had asked a Magic 8 Ball to look ahead 50 years and talk me out of changing my name at all.
Don’t even get me started on the tab for this collection of certified documents. It only took me two calls to find out that I need to go to my county’s Register of Deeds for the marriage certificate. The first copy was $20; additional copies were $3 each.
A Google search for sources of the additional documents I need brought up lots of options that included service fees and asked for my social security number.
Fraud alert!
I’ll be making phone calls to find the right offices in the other municipalities, and handling my requests the old-school way with paper correspondence and a check to cover the fees. How long will it take to get everything? I’m estimating six to eight weeks.
I’m willing to invest time and money in this because I can, because voting is my right and my responsibility, and because I am conditioned (being female) to jumping through hoops. But there have been times in my life when I had neither the time nor the money. And I am so very tired of jumping through hoops because I wasn’t born with a penis. Especially not for proposed legislation that feels performative: Wisconsin Voter Registration already requires an applicant to certify that they are a citizen of the United States, and notes that falsification of information is a Class I felony.
But if, in order to confirm – again – that I am a citizen and eligible to vote, I need to re-register to vote using the name on my birth certificate, I will. Or legally change back to my birth name, never mind that it doesn’t reflect anything I’ve done since 1979. Even if SAVE doesn’t become law soon, the threat is there. This is something I can do to, hopefully, sleep better.
Or so I thought. Until January 29, 2026.
That’s when Representative Bryan Steil introduced the Make Elections Great Again Act (MEGA). So many things about this proposed legislation should concern us all, but let’s focus on just one: It would mandate the creation of a centralized voter surveillance system – “a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration list defined, maintained and administered at the State level that contains the name and registration information for every legally registered voter in the State…” Furthermore, “the chief State election official of each State shall enter into an agreement with the Secretary for Homeland Security to promptly transmit and receive records and data pertaining to citizenship, naturalization, and applications for citizenship.”
The Libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, actually sums up my own concerns pretty well:
“Election administration is one of the few remaining areas of American policy that is still largely determined by the states. And that’s a good thing. Federalism in election administration allows states to recognize their unique attributes (e.g., western states support mail voting because of the larger geographic distances), it strengthens election security (there isn’t one hack that can disrupt all 50 states), and it encourages democratic entrepreneurship (states can test different ideas and learn from each other).”
MEGA will be framed as a way to restore trust in election outcomes. Pardon me if I find that disingenuous from those who have worked so hard to undermine trust in elections. For anyone who missed all the court cases from 2020 that actually examined evidence instead of tweets, this site may be helpful.
So here we are. And it feels like legislators have lit a propane torpedo heater to thaw frozen pipes.
Donna Kallner (or whatever name she goes by next) writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin.
The post 45 Degrees North: Voting While Female appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
