Please stop saying 'Voter ID' when you mean disenfranchising 'polling place Photo ID restrictions'!

[BradBlog]

Words Matter: 'Legitimate Rape' = 'Voter ID'
Voting rights advocates must stop saying 'Voter ID' when they mean disenfranchising 'polling place Photo ID restrictions'...

Please get it straight: the concern is about "polling place Photo ID restrictions" not "Voter ID".

I've tried to warn progressives about this for years, to little avail, but discussing concerns about "Voter ID" is akin (pun intended?) to talking about "Legitimate Rape".

After all, everyone is against "legitimate rape"! But using that phrase, as most instinctively seem to understand, allows for the misleading subconscious notion idea that there is some other kind of rape that is less "legitimate".

In the same way, "Voter ID" is quite reasonable sounding -- after all, who could be against the reasonable sounding idea of identifying oneself before voting? -- but Republican-enacted polling place Photo ID restrictions are a different matter all together. Republicans know that very well, even if Democrats still can't seem to get it.

Both phrases, "Legitimate Rape" and "Voter ID", each reasonable sounding enough, miss the point and are tremendously misleading. Republican vote suppressors know that, so they love it when Democrats and progressives and voting rights advocates use the phrase "Voter ID" instead of "polling place Photo ID restrictions."

The fact is, the majority of states <i>already</i> require some form of reasonable identification of voters before voting, at least at the polling place. For that matter, federal law -- the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 -- already requires "Voter ID" in all 50 states when voting for the first time at the polling place, if the voter did not register in person and present ID at that time...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9500

[meow2u3]

1. "Polling place photo ID restrictions" is a bit cumbersome

I prefer to call it "photo ID voter suppression."

[Johonny]

2. You mean Jim Crow law

[gollygee]

3. How about "ID Poll Tax"

Fewer words.

[nc4bo]

4. I either call it Poll Tax or Jim Crow. So should everyone else! nt

[GigiMommy]

5. Great point!! n/t