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Passionate about modern feminist issues? Want to learn more about how today's political, academic, and cultural leaders strive for a future of universal equality and justice?
Join NOW in a podcast dedicated to intersectional feminist discussions in American society with leaders in entertainment, sports, politics, and science. From conversations on constitutional equality, to economic justice and reproductive rights, listeners will find new ways to learn, engage, and get empowered.
Listen for new episodes released every other Wednesday.
Lauren Kunis (00:01)
The SAVE Act and the different versions of it we see like the SAVE America Act and the MEGA Act, these are not voter ID bills. These are dangerous, disenfranchising, voter suppression bills that are essentially a show-me-your-papers bill. Um, so these pieces of legislation which are not the law. Will not become the law if we have anything to do with it at VoteRiders, would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. And what that means is you would be required to provide in hard copy a document that proved your U.S. citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, a costly, hard-to-access document for tens of millions of Americans.
They would have a vastly disenfranchising effect on who can vote in the United States.
Kim Villanueva (00:58)
Hello and welcome to Feminism Now. I'm Kim Villanueva, the president of the National Organization for Women. I'm here with National Vice President Rose Brunache.
Rose Brunache (01:07)
Hi Kim, we're coming up on the midterms. What's got you mad as hell this week?
Kim Villanueva (01:11)
Well, you know, I was just reading about a lawsuit filed by former employees of Amazon who are alleging discrimination against pregnant workers. And it's amazing to think that in 2026, we are still talking about whether a pregnant woman should have a chair at work.
Rose Brunache (01:27)
Wow.
Kim Villanueva (01:28)
Yeah, I know. So, or a bathroom break or time off to pump breast milk or to go see a doctor. That just blows my mind. I mean, there was a federal law passed in 2023 that was supposed to allow for pregnancy accommodations, but obviously it's not being enforced. So my thought is, you know. If your business model prevents a pregnant woman from having a chair at work, then I think the business model is wrong. And it's not the pregnant woman, it's the business that's wrong.
Rose Brunache (01:56)
You know, what's sad and dehumanizing about that is like it's not even necessary. I don't think it's going to really cut into their profit.
Kim Villanueva (02:03)
Right, right. But then there's not even a point to this. Yeah, keeping your workers efficient and happy should be the priority. Yeah, so Rose, what about you? What's made you angry this week?
Rose Brunache (02:14)
Well, I was watching PBS and there was a sad report about a little bit over a year since the USAID was cut dramatically. And then in 2025, um, the Trump administration cut aid specifically for maternal and child health 88%. 94% for sexual and reproductive health funding and they're only uh 80% for gender-based violence prevention. Afghanistan is hit the worst by it. And you have families where they're now forcing their children into forced marriage reducing food intake and other exploitative labor arrangements. And it's it's foreign aid is such a small percentage of the budget.
You know, whenever people say, oh, we can save money by cutting foreign aid, it's like, no, it's less than 1%, I think, in the United States.
Kim Villanueva (02:59)
Right, right. Well, and it helps people around the world. Yeah. Yeah, especially women and children. I mean,
Rose Brunache (03:04)
That's where you pay dividends. So it's just cruel and unnecessary.
Kim Villanueva (03:09)
Right, right. And you know. When I get angry, I think sometimes about how at least we have a voice. You know, we have the power of our vote to make change. But for many people in the country, voting isn't that simple. So that's why we're talking today with Lauren Kunis, the CEO and Executive Director of VoteRiders. And VoteRiders is an organization that offers free advice and assistance to make sure that all Americans can exercise their right to vote. And you know, that's especially important because that right is increasingly under threat, as we'll learn when we talk to Lauren.
We're excited to talk to her, but first we want to hear from our listeners. So if are you working towards a candidate or getting out the vote toward the midterms? Or are you worried about your own voting rights? Call now at the number in our show notes and leave a voice message. You can also email us a voice note from your phone to feminismnow at now dot org. Now let's talk to Lauren Kunis. Welcome, Lauren. We're excited to see you today and have you on the show. So welcome to Feminism Now.
Lauren Kunis (04:15)
Great to be here.
Kim Villanueva (04:16)
You know, I'd imagine that most of the people listening to our podcast are avid voters and voter registrars. Yeah, so they may not understand why other people find it challenging to vote. So can you talk about some of the challenges that people face when they had to try when they try to vote.
Lauren Kunis (04:31)
I'd be happy to. So the long and short of it is it's complicated to vote in the United States. Every state has different laws. At VoteRiders, we focus on voter ID laws. And just as an example, every state has a different voter ID law. 38 states require or request a form of ID to vote, but the options are different depending on where you live. As an additional layer of complication, ID rules differ for voting by mail if that's available to you in your state. In general, it can be complicated, it can be confusing, it can be costly to vote in the United States from a voter ID perspective.
So I think it can feel intimidating and confusing, and that is completely valid.
Rose Brunache (05:15)
Do you know what percentage of people struggle with voting challenges?
Lauren Kunis (05:20)
We do. So we know it specifically from a voter ID perspective. We do a lot of work and research to understand what percentage of Americans lack the ID they need to cast a ballot. We partnered with the University of Maryland and the Brennan Center for Justice in 2024 to release the first national research in almost 20 years on who lacks ID. And we found that about 15% of Americans or 34.5 million voting age citizens didn't have an up-to-date government-issued photo ID that had their name and address on it. You know, so a lot of people would have a license that didn't have their current address because, like me, they just moved, for example.
We also know that about one in 10 Americans or over 21 million eligible voters don't have easy access to a document that proves citizenship. So like a birth certificate or a passport. Also, it is being increasingly requested or required by states to even register to vote. So, that is just the people who lack the documents that they need. But there's an additional layer of confusion that we see all over the map. And that doesn't matter if you live in a state with an ID law or not. We see enormous voter confusion and intimidation around the issue of ID.
And the message we push out is. It is important to make a plan. It's important to understand what you need to cast a ballot and make a plan when and where and bring friends with you.
Kim Villanueva (06:50)
Well, it's interesting you talk about voter and voting rights and voter IDs as confusing because in a way, it seems like it's reasonable. You know, people can say, well, yeah, of course you need a voter ID because you need an ID to buy alcohol or to board a plane. But yet it's really rooted in discrimination, you know, in a history of oppression. So could you talk a little about how that affects people today?
Lauren Kunis (07:12)
Absolutely. And that's something we hear at VoteRiders a lot, unfortunately, you know. It is not your constitutional citizenship-derived right to buy alcohol, nor is it your right to get on a plane or go to a concert. It is your right to vote. And nothing should stand in the way of your ability to do that. I also push back on that by making sure people understand, you know, when I go to buy a bottle of wine at the store near me. I can show any form of ID. But in states that have the strictest of ID laws, it has to be a specific form of ID. It can't be a student ID, for example, or it can't be an unexpired ID.
So there's a lot of nuance and the devil is in the details. It is not as simple as everyone has an ID, which we know, A, is false. B, it's a very different sort of sphere that we're thinking about. A lot of people talk about voter ID laws as sort of a modern-day poll tax, frankly. You know, it's another way that voters are disenfranchised. It's another way that an added cost is tacked on to what should be a free and accessible right for every American citizen of voting age. And it's also another way to sort of distort the electorate and make it less representative.
And less democratic at the end of the day. You know, we know from our research as well as our on the ground experience, for example, that women who change their name when they get married, that students, that young people, that communities of color, that low-income individuals all lack ID at much higher rates than other groups. So it's important to think about voter ID laws and their impact on individual voters, but also their impact on the electorate as a whole. If we are demographically, or income-based, or gender-based, distorting the electorate then we're going to have an electorate that is less representative of all of us and less democratic at the end of the day.
Rose Brunache (09:07)
You mentioned voter ID challenges, not having the right ID. And you know it might seem like an easy thing, just bring a driver's license or passport. Why is it not that simple?
Lauren Kunis (09:18)
It's not that simple because lots of people don't have those documents. It's also not that simple because getting those documents can be very costly. It can take weeks, it can take months. Women in particular often have challenges because they change their name when they get married, so they need to update your documents to align with the voter registration and their ID documents. I really encourage folks to go to our website at voteriders.org, where we are very intentional about capturing the stories of voters who, for lots of different reasons, don't have and can't without our help access the documents they need to cast a ballot.
You know, it can be everything from having your purse stolen to having your documents destroyed in a fire to being unhoused to be exiting incarceration. There are so many different reasons for which people lack the ID that is increasingly required by states to cast a ballot. And all of them are understandable, and all of them could be us. It's really important to think about in this era of rising costs, of rampant inflation, of stagnating wages, the cost of getting a license in many states is they put like three to five or more hours of work the minimum wage.
And for too many Americans, in a democracy, I find that unacceptable.
Rose Brunache (10:39)
And also a driver's license, it doesn't tell you your citizenship. So it's really just a passport that will tell your immigrate, you know, your status as in terms of citizenship, right?
Lauren Kunis (10:49)
You're absolutely right that for the most part. A driver's license is not proof of citizenship. Yeah, it is. Proof of identity and proof of residence and proof that you passed a driver's test. But you're right, that proof of citizenship is a very different bar that eligible voters would be asked to clear. That would be a US birth certificate, a US passport, and a couple of others like a naturalization certificate, other documents. But those are even more costly. And in thinking about the proof of citizenship bills and laws that have been exploding across the scene in the last couple of years.
You have to think about those vital documents. People typically carry a license or ID document around it, but no one does and no one should carry around their birth certificate. So, if that is the kind of document that is requested in hard copy to register to vote. We're looking at massive disenfranchisement. That's one of the reasons why VoteRiders has been so active in the broad pushback against the SAVE Act and similar legislation at the federal level that would seek to require those hard to access documents to even register to vote.
Kim Villanueva (11:59)
Lauren, in his second term, President Trump has been obsessed with the idea that people are voting and that they who shouldn't. Why do you think he is so focused on that?
Lauren Kunis (12:11)
What I will say, you know. We are a nonpartisan organization, not here to assign motive or speculate about intent. Um, it is misguided to be focused on voter fraud and non citizen voting because all of the evidence shows, and I'm including evidence from conservative leaning organizations like the Heritage Foundation. All of the evidence shows that non-citizen voting is vanishingly rare. It shows that voter fraud is, for all intents and purposes, something that does not exist. And I would really urge every single lawmaker from the local city council to the president of the United States to think instead about how we can boost voter turnout in the United States.
The challenge we have is not a fraud problem, the challenge we have is that every single election year, tens of millions of eligible voters stay home because the voting process is not accessible to them. You know, the way to build trust in elections is not by spreading false information about election integrity. The way to build trust in elections and the outcomes that they produce is to make elections accessible to everyone who's eligible to vote. And that's what we need to be devoting our energy to this November and every year after that.
Kim Villanueva (13:30)
So we still have a lot more to talk about, including the SAVE Act, but we need to take a break first to hear from our chapters.
Irene Strohbeen (13:40)
I'm Irene Strohbeen. I'm the president of Appleton Area NOW in Wisconsin. One of the things that makes our chapter special is that we're the only chapter in the state of Wisconsin. We received a grant from the National NOW Foundation to help with two different projects. The first project, which has already been started is to provide education and educational materials so that voters know that there will be a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. This particular amendment would prohibit discrimination against classes but it would also prohibit preferential treatment.
And that's the phrase that we have huge problem with as you might imagine we call it the anti-equity amendment grant is allowing us to print postcards in particular. These are postcards that have condensed this information down to a few short, simple nuggets. And they're designed so people can send these out to their Wisconsin voter friends and family. It's all about making people aware that this is going to be on the ballot. And because the funds come from the foundation, we can't tell them how to vote. I think most people that follow us know to vote no.
We are also on Facebook as Appleton Area NOW. We also have an Instagram by that same handle. You can find us at appletonareanow.org. That's dot O-R-G.
Kim Villanueva (15:24)
And we're back with Lauren Kunis, CEO and Executive Director of VoteRiders.
Rose Brunache (15:30)
There's been a lot of talk about mail-in voting. Trump himself voted by mail in order to vote in Florida. Yet this administration wants to curtail that. Is voting by mail safe?
Lauren Kunis (15:40)
Yes, if voting by mail is accessible to you where you live and that is your preferred method of voting, you should absolutely do so. I know it has been extremely confusing with the judicial ping pong and all of the misleading information that we see on social media and in the on the internet and everywhere you are. Voting by mail is safe, it is secure, it is convenient. As you said, it is so secure and convenient that even the president himself chose to exercise that option to cast a ballot. But the important thing is to vote. And to exercise whatever option makes the most sense for you, where you live.
Voting by mail is absolutely still an option for millions of Americans, and we cannot let anyone tell us otherwise.
Kim Villanueva (16:30)
Good. I'm planning to vote by mail as well.
Lauren Kunis (16:33)
Okay, then so you can join me. I might try and switch it up on election day to be honest because there's something sentimental about especially since there's no school. I feel like that's a fun thing to bring your young kids to do.
Kim Villanueva (16:43)
Yeah, encourage them to participate in the democratic process.
Lauren Kunis (16:46)
Yes. And you get a sticker. So voting by mail, sometimes you don't get a sticker.
Rose Brunache (16:51)
So, as part of Trump's effort to combat voter fraud, what he thinks is voter fraud. He's trying to pass something called the SAVE Act, which isn't even popular within his own party. People may have heard about it, but can you explain what it really is?
Lauren Kunis (17:05)
The SAVE Act and the different versions of it we see like the SAVE America Act and the MEGA Act. These are not voter ID bills. These are dangerous, disenfranchising, voter suppression bills that are essentially a show me your papers bill. Um, so these pieces of legislation which are not the law will not become the law. If we have anything to do with it at VoteRiders. It would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. And what that means is you would be required to provide in hard copy a document that proved your U.S. citizenship, like a birth certificate or a passport, a costly, hard-to-access document for tens of millions of Americans.
They would have a vastly disenfranchising effect on who can vote in the United States, they would disproportionately harm low-income individuals, women who change their name when they get married, students and young voters, and communities of color, all the groups that are already underrepresented in our politics and in elected office. The SAVE Act is a proposed solution to a problem that does not exist. Like NOW, at VoteRiders, we've been very active in the fight against it. And it has been really encouraging to see the groundswell of support and the massive public opposition to it that cuts across, to your point, party lines and it cuts across geography because people know that the challenges this bill would cause would be disastrous for American elections, for election officials, for voter registration groups, and for everyday voters like you and me.
Kim Villanueva (18:46)
Yeah, it's interesting that you talk about how it would affect a broad swath of people, not just people that it's targeted for. So do you want to talk a little more about how it would affect women and people of color?
Lauren Kunis (18:58)
Absolutely. So for women in particular, about 80% of women change their names when they get married, then sometimes change names when they get divorced. So women would have a lot more sort of documentary challenges and more hurdles to go through, you know. Your birth certificate never gets updated to reflect a married name. You would need to provide your birth certificate, plus a marriage certificate. And if you got divorced, you would need to provide paperwork showing that. So it would be just sort of layer upon layer of extra documentation just to register to vote.
And frankly, that would be the type of sort of inconvenience and bureaucratic red tape that would cost money, that would take time, and that would be a really powerful barrier in getting millions of women not to cast a ballot. I was on a panel actually earlier this year, a couple of months ago, this summer, and someone asked me a question about sort of why is it a big deal to have proof of citizenship. And before I could even answer, a Republican clerk from Arizona who runs elections in a large county there started talking about how she got married three times and divorced and was also adopted and.
I could not have said it any better myself. But women who are more likely to change their names because of life circumstances would be dramatically more inconvenienced if this legislation were to become law. And that would amount to discrimination at the end of the day. It would be gender-based discrimination, anywhere is able to cast a ballot because the process would be easier for people who didn't have those same documentation challenges. Similarly, our research found that low-income individuals and that black and brown communities were far more likely, over three times more likely, to lack documentary proof of citizenship.
So lack easy access to something like a US birth certificate that would sort of distort the electorate in a way that would harm certain groups more than others and harm all of our shared democracy.
Rose Brunache (20:59)
So you you mentioned the opposition of this is bipartisan. Why is that? I mean, you sort of talked about it, but if you could expand.
Lauren Kunis (21:07)
I mean, I think when you're talking about something that would affect 21 million voting age Americans or one in 10 eligible voters. It's not possible for that to be limited to Americans of one political party or one ideology. You know, what we see in our work on the ground every single day and in our research is that. ID challenges cut across geographies, they cut across demography, they do impact certain groups. More than others? But they impact everyone. It could be a veteran who can't use a veteran's ID to cast a ballot. It could be the woman who changed her name when she got married and never updated her documents.
Broad public opposition that is bipartisan has been a key factor in stopping this harmful legislation at the federal level. And we're optimistic that that will continue in the future because, at the end of the day, it's placing an undue burden on voters, it's placing an unfunded mandate on local election officials across the country. And for that reason, we're confident that it will not become the law. But the confusion it causes is still there. That's something we see on our helpline every single day. People calling us thinking the SAVE Act is the law and they need our help to get a document that they actually don't need.
And while we help those individuals, what keeps me up at night is the fact that for every single one of them that calls or texts us. There are likely many more almost self-disenfranchised because they don't know. That the SAVE Act is not a requirement. They read about it passing in the House and end up thinking it's the law. So that's why it's incumbent upon all of us within our families and communities and group chat and social media to make sure that people know accurate information about the voting process and make a plan.
Rose Brunache (23:01)
Have there been states that created their own state versions of the SAVE Act?
Lauren Kunis (23:06)
There are a handful. An example is Arizona, which requires documentary proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections. It is not legal to require that at the federal level. But Arizona, as a result, has a bifurcated system where they have sort of two tiers of voters. You know, another example is Florida, which passed its own sort of version of the SAVE Act, which will not be in effect this year, but is slated to go into effect in 2027. And we're watching lots of states very closely. You know, 27 states considered proof of citizenship laws this last year just as we saw an explosion of ID and proof of citizenship laws after the 2020 election, something we at VoteRiders are anticipating is potentially a second explosion of those after the 2026 elections.
Kim Villanueva (23:59)
Yeah, one group of people that have been especially targeted by harsh laws are transgender people. You know, and that certainly affects them with voter IDs. So, how can you, at VoteRiders, help people who you know, are transgender, but want to be able to vote?
Lauren Kunis (24:14)
We're really proud to be in solidarity with the trans and non-binary community who, to your point, face very unique challenges when it comes to casting a ballot in terms of having an ID document that reflects your current gender presentation and preferred name. Certain states have been making it impossible to switch your gender on your license, for example. I encourage everyone to go to our website at voteriders.org slash pride, where we have specific resources for the trans community. We also share some of the stories of the trans voters we've assisted.
Can often take months and months to get sort of the right documents, and we enlist pro bono attorneys. I think it's also important to note that just the experience of going to cast a ballot, even if the sort of hard law and documentation is not a challenge, I think it can be a really difficult and intimidating environment to vote for all voters this year, but especially for trans voters when they get to the polling site and perhaps present an ID that doesn't look like them as they currently are. Which is why we really encourage folks and are there to support them in making a plan that works for them.
Maybe that's voting by mail, maybe that's voting early when the lines are a bit shorter in many states. But you're completely right that this is a uniquely challenged community, which is why we have dedicated resources and support available to help them.
Rose Brunache (25:44)
What worries you the most about the current efforts to restrict voting?
Lauren Kunis (25:48)
I will say there is so much misinformation out there, and in this era, the misinformation can spread like wildfire. So I would say what concerns me the most is voters being confused and choosing to not participate because it feels overwhelming or because it feels confusing.
Kim Villanueva (26:08)
But VoteRiders was created to address some of the issues you've talked about and help people overcome those barriers. Can you talk about how people can access your website and your organization for help? I know you said you provide free services.
Lauren Kunis (26:21)
Mm-hmm. So VoteRiders was founded in 2012 to address an emergent voter ID crisis. We do lots of free voter education and ID assistance. If you go to our website, voteriders.org. The first thing you can and should do is look up the voting rules in your state. Make sure you have the ID you need to cast a ballot. Share that link with a friend or 10 if you're so inclined. If you don't have the ID you need to vote where you live, there's a get-free help button on our website where you can input your information and start the process. We also have a free helpline that voters can call or text for help in English and Spanish, answer any questions you might have about ID.
It's 866-ID-2-VOTE. And we also are grateful to partner with thousands of partner organizations such as NOW, of course, to help them get the word about voter ID laws out in their community and offer our free services to all of the communities they're in contact with.
Kim Villanueva (27:25)
I know that last year you helped five million voters.
Lauren Kunis (27:28)
Yeah.
Kim Villanueva (27:28)
So this year with the midterms, so important. Do you have a goal this year in terms of who you want to reach and how you want to reach them?
Lauren Kunis (27:36)
Yeah, we do. We're going even bigger this year, which might not surprise you. But our goal is to reach 10 million voters before November with free ID information and help. So when we think about the voters we reach, they are the people we send text messages to, write handwritten letters to, make phone calls to, the people we support one-on-one who we meet at community resource fairs or high schools or food banks or shelters. We also look at some of the sort of digital communications efforts we do as part of that reach goal, but 10 million is our goal.
We try and organize with and in the communities that are most harmed by ID laws. So as a nonpartisan organization, you know. We help every eligible voter who needs our support. But we do dedicate a particular focus to young people, to students, to women who have changed their name. Because of marriage or divorce, to low-income individuals and to communities of color, because we know that those are the groups that are most likely to need our free help in order to be able to cast a ballot.
Kim Villanueva (28:40)
Fantastic. I hope you get your goal. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us and for telling us about your amazing and critical work about how we can exercise our constitutional right to vote. And thank you for protecting that right for us.
Lauren Kunis (28:52)
Well, thank you for being an incredible partner in that important effort.
Kim Villanueva (28:56)
Yeah. As you all know, we lost the great Gloria Steinem at the beginning of September. A journalist, writer, organizer, a movement leader. Gloria used her extraordinary platform to challenge the status quo. Expose injustice and bring women's voices and experiences into the national conversation. We hope you will go to now.org to read my reflection on her passing and call or leave us a message with your own thoughts. Rest in power, Gloria. We will work to carry your torch forward. Rose, that was a great conversation. What did you think?
Rose Brunache (29:35)
Um I think it's sad that we even need organizations like this, as great as they are. You know, other countries they have elections where it's easy to register, where you don't really register to begin with, you know. Government knows who you are. They know where to get you when it's time to pay taxes. But but yeah, you know, other countries voting is mandatory, so I feel like, you know, we shouldn't have to need these type of services, but it's wonderful that they exist.
Kim Villanueva (30:02)
Yeah, I always thought it was interesting that Lauren mentioned that the right to vote is a constitutional right. You know, whereas people say, well, you need an ID to buy alcohol, but that isn't a constitutional right. Yeah. So the fact that we need to protect the right to vote is really is essential and putting up barriers like requiring voter IDs or poll taxes, things like that. That's, you know, that goes against everything we stand for as Americans and democracy.
Rose Brunache (30:26)
It's so wonderful to talk to people who are taking such important action in the world.
Kim Villanueva (30:30)
It is. So give us a call at the number in the show notes or send us a voice memo at feminismnow at now dot org.
Rose Brunache (30:38)
Thank you all for joining us and we'll see you next time.