This op-ed originally appeared in Teen Vogue on April 8, 2025.

More than a century ago, women marched, were imprisoned, and endured violence to secure their fundamental freedom to vote in the United States. Those suffragists who fought for the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 knew that American democracy could never be whole if half the population was silenced.

They won that right, and generations of women — especially women of color — spent decades fighting to secure and expand these fundamental freedoms. But now President Trump and many of his backers in Congress have introduced the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which threatens to undermine this progress.

To be blunt, the SAVE Act saves nothing. The bill would erect unnecessary and discriminatory barriers to registering to vote in the US, especially for women who have changed their surname, but also for trans voters, young voters without a passport, newly naturalized citizens, veterans, rural voters, and anyone who does not have the privilege of easily meeting excessive documentation requirements.

The SAVE Act would force eligible voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship materials, such as a birth certificate, in person every time they update their registration — completely eviscerating online voter registration — and would threaten hardworking election officials with strict penalties for making a mistake.

If passed, the SAVE Act would impact an estimated 69 million potentially eligible women voters — encompassing the nearly 80% of married women who adopt their partner’s surname. In the 105-year history of my organization, the League of Women Voters, this may be the most brazen, sweeping attack on American women's voting rights we have ever seen.

The impacts of the SAVE Act — and a recent anti-voter executive order that seeks to directly implement aspects of the bill — aren’t theoretical. Just this month, New Hampshire held its first local elections since the state adopted a documentary-proof-of-citizenship requirement to register to vote, and the result was chaos. One woman recounted an hours-long saga of retrieving different documents to try to register. Another had to return three times because her name on her birth certificate did not match her marriage license. Others left their polling places frustrated and never returned. I think anyone, no matter how they lean politically, would agree: This is not how our democracy should work.

Taking bill sponsors at their word, the SAVE Act purports to stop noncitizen voting, but there’s one problem: Noncitizens registering to vote and then casting a ballot is already illegal in federal elections, and states already have procedures in place to prevent the practice. In fact, it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in every state election too. As the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice has documented, there is no evidence to suggest that noncitizen voter registration and voting is occurring at a meaningful scale. The president’s executive order and the SAVE Act are both attempting to find a “solution” for a problem that doesn't exist.

Let's be real: The SAVE Act is a trick. It's not about protecting elections; it is about making it harder to participate in them. It is a Trojan horse attack on American democracy disguised as an election security measure. And women should not have to bear the brunt of a law passed to address a nonexistent problem.

The League of Women Voters of the United States, with a coalition of voting and civil rights organizations, has long fought to ensure that women can fully participate in our democracy, and we are not stopping now. We are fighting this dangerous legislation in Congress, in state legislatures, and in communities across the country — and we will continue to fight in the courts if necessary. On April 1, we filed a lawsuit against an anti-voter executive order that seeks to implement some provisions of the SAVE Act. Every single day we will work to expose this bill for what it is: an assault on voting rights and all of us.

To those who continue to use fearmongering to push these restrictions: We see you. We know what you’re trying to do. And we will not let it stand.

To US voters, especially young voters: Do not be fooled by lies. You know when someone is trying to pull a fast one. Do not let them mask their assault on your voting rights. Remember that the true threat to democracy is not some fictional epidemic of noncitizen voting, it is the systematic effort to keep eligible voters away from the ballot box.

Democracy belongs to all of us, and we will defend it with everything we have. Take action. Start today by calling your representatives in Congress to demand they vote no on the SAVE Act.

If the women who endured many hardships in 1920 could see this attack on their hard-won rights, they would be outraged. And every voter who believes in democracy today should be too.