Republicans Want Voters To Provide Proof Of Citizenship To Vote. Millions Could Be Impacted.
Source: Huff Post
Mar 31, 2025, 05:45 AM EDT
When she was working as an election official in Arizona years ago, Tammy Patrick encountered voters who supported what was then the state’s new “proof of citizenship” law for voter registration — only to realize that they had been disenfranchised by it. “They’d say, ‘I voted for that!’” she recalled of the voters, many of whom were “snowbirds, older people, who didn’t have the wherewithal to get [the correct documents] because the documents didn’t exist anymore.” “It was heart-wrenching,” Patrick said.
At the time, Arizona was the only state in the nation with a documentary proof of citizenship requirement for voters, and thousands of people have since lost out on the right to vote in state elections. Kansas, which later also tried its own citizenship requirement for voter registration, saw similar results.
“Kansas did that 10 years ago,” Kansas’s Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab told The Associated Press in December of his state’s own requirement, which prevented tens of thousands of voter registrations and was ultimately blocked in court in 2018. “It didn’t work out so well.”
Nonetheless, despite data showing tens of millions of Americans don’t have ready access to proof of citizenship documents, Republicans are now pushing hard to require those records nationwide for voter registration. They haven’t been able to make it happen yet. But two efforts, one each from the White House and congressional Republicans, have made the prospect of a national proof of citizenship requirement a real possibility.
Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proof-of-citizenship-requirement-voter-registration-save-act_n_67e81a64e4b0f0380605eb7f
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GOP knows they more of a PITA they make it for people to legally vote (and the more it costs them) the better their chances are of winning elections. That simple.
... and make sure all IDs are in the maiden name. There's no problem for a woman showing a birth certificate when the passport and Real IDs are in her maiden name.
I actually did this 40 years ago when I was divorced. Resumed my maiden name 35 years ago, and my old "married" name doesn't exist anymore.
If I ever get married again (not likely) I'll surely keep my same old name.
I've got 6 sisters, and 4 of them kept their maiden names.
Some people change their names when getting married, and some don't, for a variety of reasons. Some probably always will, unless it's outlawed, which imo would be would be a gross infringement on people's personal choices. By the same token, I think people should be free to decide what name to use after a divorce. These are very personal decisions.
In my case, I chose to adopt the same surname as my husband, because I liked the idea of sharing a name with the person I had chosen to spend my life with. I loved my parents, but my identity was mine, not theirs, and it wasn't tied up with their last name. I was a fully autonomous, independent, self-sufficient person before I got married and have continued to be one for almost 51 years since then.
Did Michelle Robinson give up her identity when she married Barack Obama? Did Jill Tracy surrender part of her autonomy when she said "I do" to Joe Biden? How about Hillary Rodham, who initially kept her birth name but changed it later on, because people in Arkansas were being buttheads about their governor and his wife using different last names? Did she stop being an equal partner to Bill when she began using the name Clinton? In all three cases, my answer is a resounding "No."
A name is just a label. I think people should be allowed to label themselves how they want. That applies to men as well as women. I think Chasten Buttigieg and Brad Takei would agree. 
Carnival Cruz wasn't born in the U.S., so his vote should be voided and his status should be revoked in order to deport him back to Canada (where he would be "stateless" having denounced his Canadian citizenship). 
When voters are challenged for identification in public polls, it's already Election Day and too late to do anything about it. People who came to vote can be cowed into accepting lame excuses from those who would challenge their right-to-vote.
I live in Pittsburgh where this would almost never happen (we're solid blue here) but I imagine it's quite a different story in some of the Southern states. In the red states, women and minorities are more likely to be treated as 2nd class citizens, and be denied their right to vote, or bullied into thinking so.
What's awesome about the mailed ballot voting is, when the mailed ballots are requested in advance, at the same time voters must present proof of registration. If you've already voted in the same precinct (same name and address) usually it's only a signature that needs to accompany the ballot request. This signature is kept on file for comparison to the actual mailed ballot later on. With mailed ballots, there's no in-person bullying going on, and voters cannot be traumatized into thinking they have no voting rights.
Another benefit (in my opinion) is that I can research the candidates and ballot questions before I vote my mailed ballot, whereas I was often winging it when I would go to polls and vote in person.
If you're already a registered voter in your current address (with no name change) you are better off voting by mail - EARLY - especially if you are...
1. Female
2. Non-white
3. Senior citizen
4. Handicapped
5. Speaking English as a 2nd language
6. Have work obligations that entail travel or working off-hours. This includes military service, school/university enrollees, etc.
Ignore Chump and the MAGAs, take advantage of your right to vote by mail.
