The GOP Taliban to Women: Shut Up, Sit Down, and Stay Home on Election Days

The SAVE Act is the most dangerous voter suppression bill in modern history…

The Republican Taliban doesn’t want my wife, Louise Hartmann, to vote. And they may well put that desire into law this year.

Republicans have always been wary of women voting or even engaging in politics, while Democrats are welcoming of women.

About two-thirds of all female state legislators serve in Blue states; for example, Nevada (61.9%), New Mexico (53.6%), and Colorado (51%) — all Democratic-leaning states — rank as the top three for women's representation in 2025.

By contrast, Republican-dominated states are consistently at the bottom of the rankings for women's representation. For instance, West Virginia (11.2%), South Carolina (12.9%), and Mississippi (14.9%) — all Republican-controlled — have the lowest percentages of women in their legislatures.

And Republican activists and candidates are often surprisingly open about their craving to strip women of their voting rights. JD Vance’s billionaire patron Peter Theil, for example, wrote in his 2009 essay for CATO Unbound:

“The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”

Similarly, when Donald Trump endorsed Michigan politician John Gibbs for the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, it was widely known he’d made statements opposing women’s right to vote:

“Some argue that in a democratic society, it is hypocritical or unjust for women, who are 50% of the population, not to have the vote. This is obviously not true, since the founding fathers, who understood liberty and democracy better than anyone, did not believe so. …

“We conclude that increasing the size and scope of government is unequivocally bad. And since women’s suffrage has caused this to occur on a larger scale than any other cause in history, we conclude that the United States has suffered as a result of women’s suffrage.”

But since the Dobbs decision striking down Roe v Wade protections for women’s right to abortion (and Catholic-convert JD Vance’s call to the Department of Justice demanding enforcement of the Comstock Act, which would outlaw abortion nationwide along with most forms of birth control), the blowback against Republicans by women has concerned the party’s elders.

In response, they’ve put forward the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act which would specifically outlaw voter registration by an estimated third (and perhaps two-thirds) of all American women.

Trump, on his Nazi-infested social media site, ranted just before the November election that Republicans must get “every ounce” of the SAVE Act passed or shut down the government “in any way, shape, or form.” He said it was necessary because Democrats are “registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we speak,” ranting the vicious lie that, “They will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

There’s history here. Just two decades ago, Republicans came up with one of their most effective ways to rig the vote and they’ve doubled-down on it across every Red state since.

In 2006, Indiana was the first state in America to require state-issued ID to vote, following a GOP analysis that found Blacks and women were far less likely to have such ID than white men.

Fully 34 percent of American women don’t have government-issued ID with their current legal name on it, according to the Brennan Center, along with 25 percent of vote-eligible Blacks and 18 percent of Social Security-voting senior citizens.

Republicans in Indiana (and subsequent states) used the bullshit argument that there was widespread “voter fraud,” and complained that the problem was so bad the draconian measure of requiring ID was necessary.

In reality, over 250,000,000 votes were cast in primary and general elections in 2020 with only 193 criminal convictions for vote fraud. Those numbers are in the “struck by lightning” realm: the effort required to fraudulently vote is simply not worth the minimal effect it has on an election.

There has never, in the history of the US or any other advanced democracy, been an actual problem of “voter fraud.” It’s a complete hoax, and you can bet that if Democrats had figured out a way to prevent white men from voting the GOP would be raising hell every single day.

But Democrats have been largely silent, so since Indiana’s demand for government ID successfully cut down on the Black and female vote in that state, the practice has spread to every Red state in the nation, with many requiring both a photo ID and proof of citizenship like a birth certificate. And that’s where women are running into barriers.

When Louise and I got married in 1972, she never formally applied for a change of name from her maiden name, to my name, Hartmann. There was really no need; every state accepts a marriage certificate as sufficient, as does the Passport Office of the State Department.

Although there are no clear statistics, it appears that what Louise did is pretty much the same thing most American women do when they get married and adopt their husband’s name.

But under the SAVE Act, Louise would have to present proof that she’d gone to a court and petitioned for a legal change of name if she wanted to register to vote. It explicitly makes no provision for marriage certificates or other proof of marriage to justify the name difference between a drivers’ license or passport and a birth certificate.

In other words, unless Louise hires a lawyer and goes before a judge to legally change her name, 52 years after we got married, she won’t be able to vote. Here in Oregon or anywhere else in the country.

The idea has Republicans giddy.

The former Republican Lt. Governor of North Carolina, Trump-endorsed Mark Robinson, says he knows how to fix America’s political and social problems: prevent women from voting. In a video from his presentation to — ironically — the Republican Women of Pitt County in March of 2020, when Robinson was successfully running for lieutenant governor, he came right out and said it:

“I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”

Of course, Robinson isn’t onto something new for the GOP.

The calls to disenfranchise women have been growing among Republicans in recent years. Just a few months ago, Ann Coulter was blunt:

“Once again, it is time to reconsider our rash experiment with women's suffrage.”

Another hot GOP idea to dial back women’s electoral power is advocated by anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson, who spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

She doesn’t want all women to be refused at the voting booth: only those who are married. She only wants “heads of households” to vote: one vote per family. When a reporter asked her how a family would vote when the husband was a Republican and the wife was a Democrat, she replied:

“Then they would have to decide on one vote. In a Godly household, the husband would get the final say.”

And if married women can’t vote because they haven’t petitioned a judge, Johnson’s desire gets fulfilled!

Former Florida Republican Congressman and admirer of drugs and underage girls Matt Gaetz is clear about the GOP not needing the votes of those whiney “Karen” women who’re upset with the party’s anti-abortion and other misogynistic positions.

Instead, Gaetz says Republicans can simply rely on recruiting Hispanic and Black men to replace them. He recently told Newsmax’s Carl Higbie:

“This is the blue collar realignment of the Republican Party and what I can tell you is for every Karen we lose, there’s a Julio and a Jamal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement.”

When news broke in 2016 that the women’s vote is what gave Hillary a 3-million popular vote win over Trump, a #RepealThe16th hashtag went viral, according to FiveThirtyEight. Nate Silver noted on Twitter that, “If only men voted in the presidential election, Mr. Trump would win the election with 350 electoral votes and Mrs. Clinton only 188”: That tweet exploded across the internet.

And it’s not just Republican politicians and pundits who are calling for an end to women’s right to vote: the religious right/Christian Nationalists are getting into the act. One of the most influential pastors in America, Covenant Bible megachurch pastor Joel Webbon, is beating the same drum. Here’s what he told an interviewer recently:

“So, I don't want women to vote because I want strong marriages. I want cohesive households. I want representative government all the way down to the family. And I also want babies not murdered. I don’t want drag queen story hour. I don’t want Rainbow Jihad. And none of that could happen, if women couldn’t vote.”

The impact, particularly on married women, of passing the SAVE Act is clear and measurable. As the National Organization for Women (NOW) details in a report on how Republican voter suppression efforts already harm women:

“Voter ID laws have a disproportionately negative effect on women. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage. Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name.

“That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents.”

This is not a small or inconsequential issue. As the Council on Foreign Relations noted last year:

“Women voters will play a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Women comprise the largest group of registered voters, and they tend to turn out at high levels to vote, as 68.4 percent of them did in the 2020 election.”

Only about 5 percent of provisional ballots were rejected by Ohio, for example, before they “tightened” the requirements of their strict photo ID law to vote in 2023; last November the rejection rate was more than 28%. The numbers aren’t broken out by gender, but it’s safe to assume the majority are women, and will double or triple if the SAVE Act passes.

As the Brennan Center For Justice argues:

“This would be the worst voting bill to be passed by Congress in memory, probably ever. It would restrict millions of eligible citizens from registering. And in the clamor of the moment, it could slip through.”

Louise, and every other married woman in America who’s taken her husband’s name without going through a formal court process to legalize the name change, will have to go through that cumbersome and expensive process to get a certificate that will allow her to vote. And living in a Blue state won’t help; this is federal legislation.

The Republican assault on women's voting rights isn’t just a threat — it’s already underway. Stand up, speak out, and fight back: call your representatives, rally your community, and make sure they know we will not allow women’s voices or votes to be erased.

Forewarned is forearmed.

The song that was inspired by this article is here.
My reading this article as an audio podcast is here.
My new book, The Hidden History of the American Dream, is now available.
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