In the art world, the provenance of an object establishes a documented history of ownership–a “biography” of sorts, integral to verifying authenticity and establishing legal ownership. Tracing provenance is instrumental in identifying forgeries or fraud.

To prevent fraud in elections, the SAVE Act would require proof of citizenship through a legally verifiable document trail before registering to vote–a sort of provenance of identity. Representative Nick Langworthy voted yes when the House passed the SAVE Act on February 11, 2026.

At first glance, proof of citizenship for voting sounds reasonable, even though evidence of non-citizen voting is extremely rare. But the issue is not whether citizens can prove who they are in theory, but whether ordinary Americans can realistically assemble certified documents from multiple offices and decades of life changes on an election timeline.

So what does provenance mean for American citizens preparing to vote in upcoming elections?

For most men, it means nothing. Their “place of origin or earliest known history” can be easily and clearly established by their birth certificates.

However, the vast majority of women–80%–change their surnames in marriage. This majority of women cannot easily document their identities and their citizenship from birth through marriage to the present day. The SAVE Act is sold as stopping illegal voters, but functionally it burdens lawful citizens and disproportionately burdens women, who earned the right to vote in 1920.

To register or update your voter registration, you would be required to provide documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization record. If the name on those documents is different from your current legal name, you would also need certified records linking that name from birth to the present. You would feel this impact when you register to vote for the first time, move, update your legal name or address, or if your voter record were flagged for eligibility verification.

You would need to provide a certified document trail of birth and marriage certificates. For women who have changed their names following divorce or the death of a spouse, the certified trail is even more complex, involving the production of multiple court documents.

Even a federally compliant REAL ID driver’s license would not be enough on its own, because the SAVE Act requires documentary proof of citizenship, not simply proof of identity.

In rural counties like ours, where births, marriages, and court records may sit in different town and county offices, assembling a full certified document trail can mean contacting multiple clerks in city, town, village, and county offices, especially for older voters after life changes like the death of a spouse, a move to smaller housing, or updating long-standing legal records.

Some eligible voters will be unable to assemble these documents in time to vote.

I’ve got a passport, but approximately 50% of Americans do not. That rate is lower in rural counties like ours.

Why? Because obtaining a passport requires paying real money–$165–in a time of inflation and high grocery prices.

Many people in our country have never traveled outside the United States because the cost of international travel is high. Unless you can afford and have the intention to travel to another country, you might not have a passport.

If you don’t have a passport, you would need to pay for a certified copy of your birth certificate and your marriage license from your town, city, or village clerk. For women who have been divorced or widowed and remarried, you would have to pay for copies of the legal documents that prove divorce, death, and remarriage as well. These fees add up.

Right now, the SAVE Act is sitting in Congress, waiting to be enacted by the Senate. If the Senate votes to ratify it, it would become the law of the land. There is no potential grace period for women to get their documents in order to be able to vote.

If the Senate were to approve the SAVE Act close to an election, millions of American women whose names do not match their birth certificates could lose their right to vote–a quiet and procedural erosion of a right in place for over 100 years.

This is the door to disenfranchisement that Nick Langworthy has cracked open with his YES vote in the House.

Laws meant to protect elections should not create unattainable administrative hurdles for citizens.

Voting should never depend on a lifetime of paperwork.

Julie Jackson-Forsberg is a Jamestown resident.