Actress Meryl Streep spoke out against the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act during an interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Wednesday, claiming married women would need to “prove who they are.”
Colbert asked the actress at the end of their interview if there was anything she wanted to talk about or bring up.
“I hope that the Save America Act, if that passes, all the married women that have changed their names are going to have to go to the registrar and prove that they are who they are. In other words, to your voting registrar,” she said. “This is what I understand. Otherwise, when you get to the voting booth in November, you might be disqualified because your name doesn’t, on your birth certificate, doesn’t match your name on the voting rolls. So, everybody has to get – and this is such a pain in the neck because you have to go but do it because, otherwise you’ll be turned away.”
She continued, “And I think that women need to be heard, especially in this moment.”
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The GOP-backed SAVE Act — which requires proof of citizenship to vote — has been met with strong opposition from Democrats.
Democrats argue the bill will lead to voter suppression and have compared it to “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has made the comparison multiple times.
“Each state can have its own voter ID laws, and some do and some don’t. But, secondly, what they are proposing in this so-called SAVE Act is like Jim Crow 2.0. They make it so hard to get any kind of voter ID that more than 20 million legitimate people, mainly poorer people and people of color, will not be able to vote under this law. We will not let it pass in the Senate. We are fighting it tooth and nail,” Schumer said during a CNN interview in February.
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Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., when confronted about the public support for voter ID during an interview in February, said the SAVE Act would still be something that disenfranchises voting.
An argument by Democrats is that the legislation would make it harder for American women to vote — specifically married women whose last names are now different from those on their birth certificates, which is what Streep brought up during the Colbert interview.
Republicans have countered the Democratic criticism.
“This is absolute nonsense, and we specifically allow for a provision to make sure that no one can possibly be left behind,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said, Fox News Digital previously reported.
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“If a woman tried to register to vote with different names on her birth certificate and driver’s license,” Roy said, “we literally put in the statute that all you have to do is sign an affidavit under penalty of perjury that, ‘I am that person. This is my birth certificate… and this is my driver’s license that is reflecting my married name.’”
The law, in addition to providing proof of citizenship, would mandate states to actively verify and remove noncitizens from voter rolls, expand information sharing with federal agencies, including DHS, to verify citizenship, and create new criminal penalties for registering noncitizens to vote.
