The SAVE Act Could Keep Millions of Transgender Americans From Voting

Legislation recently reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives could make registering to vote significantly more difficult for transgender Americans—threatening millions of voters’ right to engage in the democratic process. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would require all Americans to prove their citizenship status, in person, when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. Voters would also need to provide these documents every time they updated their registration information. The vast majority of Americans would be forced to present either a passport or their birth certificate to their election official in order to register to vote—documents that, even if transgender people possess them, may not reflect the name they use.

Many transgender people go by a different name than the one they were assigned at birth—but not all who want to legally change their name are able to do so. The process varies by state but is often complex and time consuming. Transgender people who do not legally change their name often face discrimination and even refusal of services because their ID does not accurately reflect their chosen name.

The SAVE Act, if passed, would represent substantial barriers to voting for not only transgender adults but also for more than 140 million Americans who do not have a passport, as well as 21 million Americans who do not have access to their birth certificate or other documentation or the millions of Americans, including 69 million married women, who have changed their legal name.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 1.3 percent of U.S. adults identify as transgender. This translates to as many as 3.3 million eligible voters. Research shows that transgender Americans engage at high levels in the electoral process. According to the 2020 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS), 75 percent of transgender respondents voted in the 2020 election, compared with 67 percent of the general U.S. population. They also registered to vote at higher rates, with 82 percent of transgender respondents being registered to vote for the 2020 election, compared with 73 percent of the U.S. population.

Transgender people face barriers to updating passports and birth certificates

Under the Trump administration, it is increasingly difficult for transgender people to secure passports that accurately reflect their chosen name and gender. Actual guidance on the issuance of new passports from the State Department in regard to transgender applicants remains unclear, but the administration has announced a pause on accepting applications to update passport gender markers. Because of this, if the SAVE Act were to become law, the transgender community would be particularly reliant on birth certificates to register to vote.

Using birth certificates for registration purposes, however, would present its own concerning challenges for transgender voters. Birth certificates are among the most difficult documents to update to accurately reflect chosen name and gender. According to the 2015 USTS, 44 percent of transgender adult respondents had updated their name legally on their IDs, but only 18 percent of transgender respondents who go by a different name had successfully updated their name on their birth certificate.

Additionally, while the SAVE Act claims to provide another option for people to register to vote using a REAL ID driver’s license, it requires licenses to indicate voters’ citizenship status—something not required by the REAL ID Act of 2005. Legally residing noncitizens are able to obtain a REAL ID in all 50 states, and in practice, nearly all Americans would not be able to use a REAL ID to register to vote under the SAVE Act.

According to the 2015 USTS, only 11 percent of transgender respondents have the name and gender marker they use on all their identification documents, a trend that may only worsen with passport name change policies in flux. The SAVE Act could leave as many as 3 million voters without sufficient documentation to register to vote.

The SAVE Act is a solution in search of a problem

Legislation such as the SAVE Act is a costly and faulty solution in search of a nonexistent problem. Numerous investigations and research findings have shown the extreme rarity of instances of election fraud. Even the previous Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity, established by President Donald Trump during his first term, was disbanded after it was not able to uncover any evidence of widespread voter fraud. While proponents of the legislation claim it seeks to keep noncitizens from voting, noncitizen voting is already a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

In reality, the SAVE Act is legislation disguised to look like it protects election integrity while actually seeking to make voting harder for millions of American citizens. In Kansas and Arizona, where similar legislation has been enacted, tens of thousands of eligible American citizens were either blocked from registering to vote or were nearly barred from voting. In Kansas, 31,000 eligible citizens were blocked from registering to vote while the law was in effect; 12 percent of them were first-time voter registrants. And in Arizona in the weeks leading up to the 2024 general election, 100,000 people’s right to vote was at risk due to administrative errors stemming from the state’s noncitizen voting requirement, while 40,000 additional voters faced potential disenfranchisement due to their lack of documentation.

Congress must resist harmful proposed policies such as those in the SAVE Act in order to ensure that all Americans, including transgender Americans, are able to exercise their right to vote. Should this legislation pass, it would only serve to further discrimination against transgender people and could keep millions of voters out of the voting booth.