It’s hard enough to get people to vote in midterm elections, and many Quad Cities residents came out Wednesday to protest a proposed federal law that would make it even harder to vote.
Women in the U.S. won the right to vote on Aug. 26, 1920. Now President Trump’s SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise millions of Americans if enacted, and on the 19th Amendment’s anniversary, Aug. 26 (Women’s Equality Day), dozens of local women and many men held signs opposing the bill, standing along Brady Street at Vander Veer Park.
Organized by the Quad Cities National Organization for Women (NOW) and Progressive Action for the Common Good, protestors said women who have changed their surnames upon marriage are especially vulnerable.
The SAVE (Safeguard Voter Eligibility) Act is likely to come up for a vote in the U.S. Senate when senators return in September. (The House passed the legislation in February.) Senators left Washington for August recess without passing the bill, despite pressure from President Trump, who likely will increase efforts to pass the bill in the Senate.
Under the act, voters would need to show a passport or birth certificate to prove their citizenship when registering.
But the League of Women Voters estimates that 69 million American women lack a birth certificate that reflects their current name.
And the Brennan Center for Justice has estimated that more than 21 million citizens do not have ready access to such documents.
QC NOW president Leslie DuPree said at the rally that the 69 million figure comes from the League of Women Voters, representing the number of married women who've changed their name and may be unregistered to vote. There is no way to know how many are already registered to vote, she said later Wednesday.
“There's just so many reasons why this is unnecessary. It's just a roadblock for a lot of people,” DuPree said of the SAVE Act. “A lot of people don't have the $20 to go down to the courthouse and take an hour off work and run down there get a copy of their birth certificate, even if they know they need it.
"Imagine you're a woman who's gotten married, divorced, and remarried, and you've changed your name twice now. Now think of the paperwork you gotta have. It's just a so-called solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist.”
She noted the Senate will have an uphill battle to pass the bill, since it requires 60 to adopt, and there are 53 Republicans.
“So when they come back in September, I'm sure it's going to be another go-around of trying to force the Senate to pass it,” DuPree said. “What we're trying to say is tell your senator, don't vote for this. We don't need it. We don't want it.”
“I think the Republicans who voted for it know in their hearts it's not a problem,” she added. “How many noncitizens have voted? If you look up the numbers, it's a minuscule, you know, fewer than 100 out of how many millions have voted. It's not a problem, but they're creating a boogeyman out of this.”
Women want the government to focus more on reproductive healthcare, improving wages, lowering costs, and other issues, DuPree said.
“But now because of this nonsense, we're out here talking about the right of women to register to vote. And not just women, don't get me wrong. There are many people who would be really seriously inconvenienced by this,” she said. “A lot of people, you know this, they don't read the news. They didn't know this was going on. If it did pass, a lot of people would have no idea, which is what they're counting on.”
Women overall usually vote at higher rates that men, according to LMV.
In both 2024 and 2022, women turned out in higher numbers than men. In 2024 specifically, 91.3 million women voted, as compared to 82.6 million men. Rates of female voters were particularly high in Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Virginia, the LWV found.
Midterms (like this November) typically draw fewer voters compared to presidential election years. In 2016, 2020 and 2024, 60 percent or more of eligible American voters cast ballots, whereas the figures were much lower in midterms – 36.7% in 2014, 50% in 2018, and 46.2% voting in 2022.
Rallying then and now
“Women won the right to vote 106 years ago today. Just as we are doing today, women and men gathered to speak and rally for the 19th Amendment,” DuPree said Wednesday, before the group marched through the park. “They worked for it for decades and they did not give up.
“Now, we will not give way to the erosion of our right to vote. President Trump’s SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise millions of Americans if enacted,” she said. “In Iowa and Illinois today, a driver’s license is sufficient for voter registration. The SAVE Act would throw up unnecessary roadblocks for many people. We can’t allow it.”
“106 years ago, women saw their right to vote secured in the Constitution. Let’s keep it that way!”
Susan Leabhart of Davenport was one of the protestors, dressed from head to toe in 1920s-era suffragette garb, and a sash that said “Votes for Women.”
It took so long to get the vote for women because of “the patriarchy,” she said. “The men did not want their women to have rights. They thought that giving women rights took away from them. They didn't understand it's not like a pie. The rights are for everybody, and just because you give somebody a right does not take away your rights.”
She equated that to the fight over gay marriage, which the Supreme Court upheld nationwide in 2015.
“I had a friend who was going on and on and on about how gay marriage took away the sanctity of her marriage, and I said, what, you mean the sanctity of your third marriage?” Leabhart said.
She’s concerned with the SAVE Act, because “they want to disenfranchise women. They want to take away our ability to vote,” she said. “They want to take away our ability to have a say in our government. The fact that they want to make women jump through all these extra hoops to vote, and it's not just having a Real ID. People don't understand that.
"If it goes full-fledged, you're going to need to be able to prove your birth certificate, your marriage certificate, your divorce certificate, your remarriage certificates. And just prove everything. And I'm lucky because I have a passport. Not every woman can afford a passport, which is like trying to disenfranchise the women and the women who have the most to lose. And that gets me.”
People would have to re-register to vote every time they move, Leabhart said.
“A lot of the women who don't have passports are living in rental properties, and they are moving on a very frequent basis. So, their voting address will change. And if they have to prove it every single time, it's going to be a nightmare,” she said.
This election will decide the fate of the House and Senate, and whether Democrat Rob Sand can succeed Republican Kim Reynolds as the next Iowa governor.
“The House and the Senate are key. And Iowa, the governor's race is key,” Leabhart said. “We haven't been doing so well in the state of Iowa recently.”
Several of the protestors Wednesday held signs and American flags along Brady Street, encouraging motorists to honk in support.
Congressional action
The House approved the SAVE Act last on Feb. 11, 2026 by a vote of 218-213. Some Democratic lawmakers criticized the bill, saying that millions of women will no longer be able to vote or will have to jump through extra hoops.
Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., called it a “voter suppression bill.”
“Nearly 69 million women in America have a birth certificate that does not match their current name and therefore 69 million American women would no longer be eligible to vote,” Underwood said.
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the second-ranking House Democrat, said Republicans “decided to make it harder for women to vote” and require them to sort through a “minefield of red tape.”
When Senate debate on the bill began March 17, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said that the bill creates “bureaucratic hurdles” for Americans to register to vote or change their registration, “particularly for the 69 million women who have chosen to change their name when they get married. Why should they be penalized?”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said concerns that the SAVE America Act would make it harder for married women to vote are unfounded, although the bill would require proof of citizenship and could add steps for those who have changed their name.
Leavitt said there’s “zero validity” to concerns that the SAVE Act would make it harder for married women to vote, despite critics of the bill arguing otherwise.
“As far as married women who have changed their name, if they're already registered to vote, they're entirely unaffected by the SAVE Act,” she said during a March 10 White House press briefing.
Women’s Equality Day – celebrating the date the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted – has been observed since 1972, and was first proclaimed by Republican President Richard Nixon.
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