The SAVE act targets people who've changed their name *for any reason*. Ya know who's done that?
- Married women
- Trans & nonbinary folx
- Immigrants
You know which US citizens that leaves?
Mostly white men.
The SAVE act isn't trying to save anything other than patriarchy and fascism.
@FaithinBones they should already do that 😋
But more importantly, we should call out this legislation for what it is—an attempt to lock out non-MAGA voters and rig an election.
@ruivo I'm a US citizen, as were my parents, and their parents, going back about as long as there's been a US.
I didn't take my spouse's name when I got married, but my birth certificate doesn't match my state ID or passport. I legally changed my name shortly after I became an adult, so I could get rid of my dad's last name (and my first name, because it was dumb).
At the time, I didn't have enough money to pay to update it everywhere, so I just never did.
I have a valid state ID and passport (well, my state ID has a nonbinary gender marker on it, so who knows if it'll be honored outside of Washington state 🤷🏼♀️ these days).
By the wording of the SAVE act, I don't think I'd be eligible to vote (for the first time since I turned 18).
@amydiehl @alice I'm not defending it. Any kind of extra documentation asked will raise barriers. Even if you carry paperwork proving change it'll do exactly what they want: make it more difficult to vote for specific demographics. People forgetting to bring, not knowing, losing it, expired and so on. Just pointing out that first generation citizens (which I assume 'immigrants' meant there) aren't likely (again, not everyone) to be impacted as much.
@alice @amydiehl The "married women" thing may surprise some people who haven't worked out all the arithmetic on this yet. After all, aren't the right wing always obsessed with traditions such as women taking on their husband's family name?
The whole point is that they'd streamline the edits to the birth certificate along with marriage certificates, and then make the reverse change extremely difficult so as to interfere with divorce proceedings.
@yPhil there's already a law against being a criminal, that's what made them a criminal. There are also already laws against election tampering and fraud.
Two states let felons vote while in prison.
If they've "paid their dues", then most places (eventually) let them vote again anyway.
Blocking upwards of a third of the population from voting because it might stop a handful of "criminals" is fucking ridiculous. If we wanted to do *that* and have fewer false-positives, we could just block straight men from voting—they make up ~93% of inmates¹—and that's with the fact that queer folx have arrest rates ~2.3× higher than straight people² (because the system is fucking busted).
Also, your argument is bullshit.
¹ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/beyondthecount.html
@yPhil I'm not your honey, nor did I say "only" anywhere in my post. I even included "mostly" just to head off diversionary comments like yours.
You seem to be putting words in my mouth while intentionally missing the point of my original post.
But maybe if you walk me through it in baby steps, using smaller words I'll understand, then we can engineer this thing together, sweetheart.
@alice @amydiehl Thank you for your kind answer, no srsly ; so OK (in retrospect baby steps can sound condescending, it's actually not but I'm sorry if it... Nahh, you understood) so OK, we're on the same page.
Name changing is a problem, in a society basically based upon it. I'm not talking social credit here, I'm talking basic secular rules. You are supposed to ask about/search the registers/google the person in front of you and know who they are. Can we agree on that?
@yPhil I don't think we are on the same page though, as I don't see name changing as the problem. In fact, I don't care what anyone's "real" name is. Of all my friends both online and in person, I only know the name on the birth certificate of *maybe* five or six—for *everyone* else, I only know what name they've asked me to call them. Some of them have changed the name they've asked me to call them, some have done so multiple times. Hell, I think there are less than half a dozen living people who know me who have any idea what my "real" name is. And it has never mattered.
Many of the things I do: political and social activism, suicide prevention outreach, being a niche internet micro-celebrity, creating adult content, I can only do effectively because people *don't* know who I am or where I live (and vice versa). I got fucking death threats for calling for a Tesla boycott, and again for talking about gun control, and again for talking about queer community building, and so on. If I could be easily searched up, then I couldn't do what I do, because I'd receive violence at the hands of some pissed off, entitled, man.
tl;dr: we could solve the "prove who you are" issue in ways that don't conveniently target and disfranchise women and minorities right before midterm elections.
@alice @amydiehl @shansterable also (and while it shouldn’t matter this might sway some folks) Catholic nuns, monks and priests - up to and including the Pope who often take new names when they take their vows.
(My aunt has been a Catholic nun for over 60 years - we in the family know her under one name. But her public name under which she has written books, led centers for the environment at universities and been a longtime lobbyist to Congress is her name she took when she took her vows)
@sleepytako @amydiehl @alice My wife and I both kept our names when we married (in academics it's a pita to prove authorship of something after a name change). We get confused looks regularly when people realize we have different last names. Most people are still living in the old world.
It also confuses people that our son has her last name. We did that mostly because her last name is far more interesting/unique than mine.
@Jumpmed when I disowned my dad, I changed my last name to my mom's (she had kept hers, and her name was way cooler anyway).
True story.
In all but about five states, not even a REAL ID will let you vote. The requirements to get on a federal installation are lower than voting under the SAVE Act.
@alice BINGO! SAVE must be stopped - it's another item on a long list aimed at ending liberal democracy.
![さよなら皆さん [semi-hiatus]](https://files.urusai.social/accounts/avatars/110/571/638/251/430/324/original/f4716c705590aa2f.png "さよなら皆さん [semi-hiatus]")