Leavitt Admits SAVE Act Will Make It Harder for Married Women to Vote

Married women will need to update their identification documentation in order to vote if the SAVE America Act passes Congress, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Responding to a reporter’s question Tuesday in the White House briefing room, Leavitt argued that the act—if realized—would not prevent married women from voting. Seconds later, she admitted that the bill actually would require married women and anyone else who has changed their name to re-register before they vote.

“The Democrats have created this myth.… Let me be very clear: The SAVE America Act does not prohibit anyone from voting, with the exception of illegal aliens,” Leavitt said. “As far as married women who have changed their name, if they’ve already registered to vote, they’re entirely unaffected by the SAVE Act. For the small fraction of individuals who have changed their name or their address, they can still register to vote, of course. They just have to go through their state processes to update that documentation.

“This is something that the American people, married women, and minorities—people all across this country who the Democrats are insultingly saying cannot do this—they’re already doing it every day. Going to the Social Security office, going to the DMV. I think it’s frankly insulting,” Leavitt said.

The SAVE America Act suggests numerous amendments to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, including line items that would abolish mail-in voting, require voters to bring proof of citizenship and proof of residency to register to vote, require voter ID, and mandate voter roll purges every 30 days, an enormous bureaucratic task that would place undue burdens on local election officials.

“This is popular and rooted in common sense,” Leavitt said while outlining the proposed changes, repeating that the alterations were “simple.”

But the act doesn’t stop there. It would also sprinkle in a couple other superficially unrelated regulations, including a federal law to prevent men from competing in women’s sports and a ban on “transgender mutilation surgery.”

“Passing the SAVE America Act is the most important thing that Republicans and, frankly, Democrats can do to strengthen election integrity and protect our democracy,” Leavitt insisted.

Yet the SAVE Act has been anything but popular: Republicans’ first effort to pass the SAVE Act failed in late 2025 under enormous nationwide opposition. Previous versions included demands that Americans bring proof of citizenship to the polls every time they vote, though that stipulation has since been erased.

Donald Trump ordered House Republicans on Monday to pass another revised version of the voter ID bill, even though a previously passed iteration already awaits a Senate vote. The president spent roughly 13 minutes of an hours-long speech on the topic while speaking to conservative lawmakers at his Doral resort, insisting the SAVE America bill should be the party’s “number one priority.”

“It will guarantee the midterms,” Trump said. “If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion.”

It is not clear how barring undocumented immigrants—who, along with legal noncitizen residents, already cannot vote—could “guarantee” the outcome of the election. It is far easier to imagine, however, how crowds of perfectly eligible voters could be sent away from the polls due to insufficient documentation. More than half of all Americans do not have a passport, according to a 2023 YouGov survey, and requesting official birth certificate copies can take significant time. What’s more, acquiring passports or copies of a birth certificate costs money that some Americans may not be able to afford.

Further still, it is easy to imagine how state agencies such as the DMV or Social Security offices, which already notoriously feature grueling wait times, could buckle under the stress of millions of Americans suddenly needing to register—particularly as the Trump administration plans to decrease SSA field office visitors by as much as 50 percent.

Addressing the GOP caucus, Trump said that failure is not an option, and underscored that he would not sign any legislation until it passes. In a phone call with NBC News last week, Trump said he would “close government over” the issue.

“I don’t think we should approve anything until this is approved,” Trump said at the Republican retreat.

Trump already tried and failed to implement voter ID in June. At the time, a federal judge excoriated the president’s efforts, arguing that adding layers of difficulty to the voting process would only serve to harm eligible voters by adding significant barriers before they can cast their ballots.

Critics argue that restrictions on the front end of the electoral process—such as one-day voting, mail-in ballots, and requiring day-of voter ID—would minimize voter turnout and limit American democracy’s ability to represent its constituents. This would especially be true in high-density areas such as the nation’s biggest cities, where those stipulations would significantly drain resources (such as the number of volunteers required at voting stations) and require more time to process, potentially leading to more delays that Republicans could weaponize to further restrict voter access.