Stop Calling It "Voter ID"

Brad Friedman, who has been covering the voter suppression beat like a blanket for years now, makes a plea for using clear language to fight the lies and obfuscation.

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."

If "polling place Photo ID restrictions" is too many words for us, just use the less accurate but more true "voter suppression" or "voting rights violation."