Actress Elizabeth Banks recently shared a video on Instagram, expressing her concerns that the SAVE Act could complicate voting for women. She encouraged her followers to push their representatives to vote against it.
“I’ve been voting since I was 18. The SAVE Act will make it even harder for me to vote. Please stop. Tell your legislators no,” Banks stated in her post on March 25th, appealing to her 4.2 million fans.
In the video, she argued that women who change their names face challenges in obtaining identification that matches their legally changed names due to marriage or other reasons.
She pointed out that the requirement for a passport, which costs around “$100,” amounts to a “poll tax” that she deems “unconstitutional.”
Banks, who has been vocal about her frustrations, highlighted her belief that the SAVE Act, known as the American Voter Eligibility Protection Act, would negatively impact women.
“I’ll tell you who hurts,” she remarked in the video. “These are my birth certificates… I was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. They say Elizabeth Mitchell, because that was my birth name.”
“Like millions of women, I changed my name. I adopted the professional name Elizabeth Banks, but not through marriage,” she clarified.
Banks then displayed her California driver’s license, showcasing her professional name on it.
She expressed uncertainty about when she officially changed her name, mentioning that she doesn’t even know if the original paperwork was filed in New York City or Los Angeles.
“The important thing is that that was 27 years ago,” she added. “And I might have to dig up that document to explain the discrepancy.”
“They don’t match, and they likely never will,” she insisted. “This won’t apply to many people out there.”
She dismissed comments suggesting it was fine because she has a passport, questioning, “How many millions of Americans don’t have a passport?”
“Getting a passport costs over a hundred dollars, which feels like a poll tax. It’s unconstitutional,” she asserted.
“Requiring a passport for voting is unacceptable. Voting is a constitutional right,” she insisted. “We should be making it easier for people to vote. The benefits are clear.”
Recently, White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt addressed claims that the SAVE Act would hinder married women from voting if they change their names.
“For married women who have changed their names, as long as they are already registered to vote, this law won’t impact them,” she mentioned during a March 10 briefing.
Leavitt also refuted unverified suggestions that Black individuals are disenfranchised due to a lack of understanding about how to obtain valid identification.
Regarding claims of disenfranchisement among Black people and minorities, she stated, “It’s insulting to suggest that there’s a group of people who are not capable of updating their documents to be allowed to vote.”
The SAVE Act does not state that a woman’s birth certificate and current ID must match for voting eligibility. It only insists that she proves she was born in the U.S.
Furthermore, it requires states to develop systems to create alternative methods for applicants to demonstrate their U.S. citizenship, which means reconciling discrepancies between birth and married names.
In essence, the SAVE Act doesn’t mandate matching names on a woman’s birth certificate and ID for voter registration.
