"Asian Names Should Be Changed": Voter ID Bills, Voter Suppression By Another Name?

If you thought Republicans were taking a long nap in the wilderness after their devastating rout at the polls this past November, think again. Given their electoral losses, state legislatures (especially those dominated by Republicans) have recently mobilized across the country to make voting harder. I guess if you can't win fair and square, try to rig the game in your favor.

The dust-up over Texas Republican House of Representatives Betty Brown's comments to Asian Pacific American voting rights activist Ramey Ko, (that's spelled 'K'-'O,' in case you were wondering) is but the most visible sign of this. Ko made a presentation to the Texas state legislature recently on the issue of documentation required of APAs to show eligibility to vote. The Texas legislature is considering passing their own "Voter ID Bill," much like the ones on the books in Indiana, Georgia, and Florida.

In his presentation, Ko cited a few incidents in Florida, where in the 2008 election, APA voters faced challenges at the ballot box when presenting a valid form of ID. Misspellings, errors in transcribing names by governmental workers (clerical errors), and inconsistencies in transliterating non-alphabetic names to English (the Wade-Giles vs. Pinyin systems of rendering Chinese names, for example) all contribute to impede APA voting rights at the ballot box when those names don't match exactly with voter rolls. Voters can also be denied their right to vote when an Asian Pacific American with a legal transliterated name of their Asian-language name (Ang Lee), has another form of ID that reflects a given name they use ("Jim" Ang Lee, for example).

Texas House of Representatives member Betty Brown made a suggestion to Ko, as quoted in the Houston Chronicle: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

There are a lot of assumptions balled up in Brown's comment. First of all, are Asian Americans not also Americans? Russell Leong, a UCLA adjunct professor of Asian American and ethnic studies, gives this context for the incident:

"Beyond partisan politics of Democratic and Republican, the bottom line issue is the anti-immigrant xenophobia that has developing after 9/11 -- against all groups including but not limited to Asians, Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Mexicans and Latinos," Leong told FOXNews.com in a statement. 

"How far is America willing to go to be inclusive of its non-white and non-European immigrants? Did America have problems with its Russian, Polish, and Eastern European immigrants or refugees who passed through Ellis Island? Were not their names also difficult to pronounce or spell? Asian names are no more difficult, in my view."

I'd argue that it goes beyond the name, all the way to the changing demographic profile of the electorate: younger, more Latino, more Asian. Less likely to be Republican.

I'd also suggest that Brown is no well-meaning innocent but a proud conservative partisan who, on her official House website, touts her record as one "...recognized for her excellent conservative voting record by many organizations including Free Enterprise PAC of Dallas, Eagle Forum, and the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce. Representative Brown currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute." According to the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute's own website on "Election Integrity," it references a 2006 Texas Attorney General's study on voter fraud in which "there have been three [3] instances of alleged illegal voting [emphasis mine], which may include circumstances preventable by a voter photo ID law." Hmm, laws passed to prevent alleged illegal voting? Where are the Texas House of Representatives' hard stats on ACTUAL illegal voting that can be specifically cured by inspection of voter ID?

Now, Republicans will tell you that fraudulent use of another's identity is a concern at the voting both. However, scholars and others active in the field of voting rights and legislation, such as Adam Skaggs at the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice, have said that "more people report UFO sightings in one year" than commit voter impersonation fraud at the polls. He elaborates by saying:

As to allegations of other types of voter fraud, our research indicates that these claims often prove baseless upon inspection:  except in the rarest of cases, those who are screaming about fraud are crying wolf.  This is true of the most frequently reported forms of putative voter fraud—including double voting, voting in the name of dead people, and—most importantly for the purposes of this hearing—individuals impersonating registered voters at the polls.  The Brennan Center's exhaustive research revealed that there is little to no reliable evidence of in-person impersonation fraud, in Texas, or elsewhere in the country.  And, of course, this form of fraud is the only misconduct that a voter identification requirement will address. [emphasis mine]

Hell, even a Texas Republican campaign consultant says fraud committed at the polls is, in a word, imaginary.

Royal Masset, a consultant who by his own estimate has been involved in some 5,000 Republican campaigns in Texas, agrees.

"My experience is that in-person voter fraud [the kind of fraud voter ID legislation is designed to prevent] is nonexistent," he says. "It doesn't happen, and if you really analyze it, it makes no sense because who's going to take the risk of going to jail on something so blatant that maybe changes one vote?"

And that means a lot coming from Royal Masset, especially when in the next breath, he calculated that a photo ID requirement would depress Democratic voter turnout by 3%.

Voter impersonation--yet another right-wing bogeyman. ACORN, ACORN, ACORN--give it a frakkin' rest. Aren't we all getting a little tired of these vicious flapdoodles from the GOP over imagined scary things when real, immediate fears (like our deflating economy) are at hand? Take for example the concern over voter fraud versus inactivity on actual vote fraud. In These Times makes the distinction here:

When Republicans talk about voter fraud they are referring to illegal voting by individuals, as opposed to vote fraud—systematic attempts to steal an election by an organized group of partisans. This emphasis on voter fraud has convinced eight states to pass laws requiring voters to present official photo identification in order to cast a ballot—laws that studies have shown suppress Democratic turnout among voters who are poor, black, Latino, Asian-American or disabled.

Republican misdirection works like this: get worked up over 3 possible acts of voter impersonation in Texas, but be blind to the highly irregular vote outcomes in Ohio and other states in the 2004 elections.

What IS real is voter suppression. I was able to find a detailed, recent exit poll study done on the demand for voter ID as a form of voter suppression--even in states where NONE WAS REQUIRED BY LAW--from Asian Pacific Americans attempting to vote.

From a study conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense Fund (AALDEF):

...Asian American groups have monitored elections across the country over the last decade and found that voter ID requirements have discriminatory impacts on Asian American voters.  AALDEF's  exit poll of almost 11,000 Asian American voters in 23 cities in eight states in the 2004 elections revealed how voter ID laws place additional burdens on the right to vote.

• In New York, identification is not required to vote, but 23% of all Asian American voters surveyed were asked to show ID.  Of those, 69% were not required to do so under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which requires only a limited group of first-time voters to present ID.  In Chinatown, a police officer turned away all Asian American voters who did not have a photo ID with them.

An exhaustive article details past Republican attempts at voter suppression, culminating in, under completely disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, the politically-motivated firing of federal prosecutors who wouldn't fabricate voter fraud cases framing Democrats.

Now, I may not necessarily agree with how you vote, candidate- or party-wise, but I'll fight tooth and nail for you to vote without suppression or adulteration of your vote, or other invalidation of your vote or intimidation of you at the ballot box. And I expect the same courtesy. If you registered, you should be able to vote.

Let Rep. Brown know her efforts on "voter fraud" are being watched closely, and maybe suggest some diversity sensitivity training as to why her suggestion that Asians change their names was offensive and wrong. Demand that she apologize to Asian Pacific Americans, who are an emerging force in the electorate, especially in the south and southwest.

Her postal mail and fax addresses, and phone numbers are as follows:
Capitol Address
Room E1.404, Capitol Extension
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 463-0458
(512) 463-2040 Fax

District Address
108 S. Pinkerton, Suite 105
Athens, TX 75751
(903) 675-9500
(903) 677-6773 Fax

Check your state to see if Republicans are quietly trying to make voting harder here at Project Vote, and here (launches pdf file).

H/T and bloggy love to MOMocrats Glennia, Julie, Kimchi Mamas, Justin at AAF, Burnt Orange, and Coby, Bay Area Houston.

UPDATED TO ADD: The Secretary of State for California, Debra Bowen, announced today that a petition to place a Photo ID initiative on the ballot was filed today (pdf here). Wasn't I just saying photo ID requirements were favored by GOP partisans because they're a more successful voter suppression tactic...? Let's nip this in the bud now.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Comments

[Julie Pippert]

As a Texan who has heard from Betty Brown before? I'm just grateful she didn't introduce legislation forbidding APAs from naming kids by throwing spoons down stairs. *eyeroll*

She's not, FTR, some poor misunderstood lady getting ravaged by agenda-laden Democrats. She's a racist working to block minorities and immigrants from the polls, and a conservative trying to make voting harder (based on false pretenses).

Awesome article, Cyn, with great rundown of the false premise behind the Voter ID plan, and the consequences of all of this.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Great post. You are one of the few to really blog about the issue that lies behind "transliterated names" - why voter ID is bad! It's shame with all this media attention that Ko doesn't speak to why voter ID legislation beyond the argument of transliterated names.

[Kristin]

There's a book by Richard Kim called Lost Names -- it details how Koreans were forced to give up their names under Japanese colonialism and how this form of oppression outweighed many other forms -- it was seen as among the worst types of dehumanization.

What's particularly nauseating about this is that when conservatives feel that their "culture" is being threatened, ie, their guns, their Hummers, their ability to degrade the environment for their own personal gain, they become outraged and filled with a sense of persecution. Apparently, they are the only ones that have a right to a culture, hmmm?

[logo maker]

l love Leong's statement:"Beyond partisan politics of Democratic and Republican, the bottom line issue is the anti-immigrant xenophobia that has developing after 9/11 -- against all groups including but not limited to Asians, Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Mexicans and Latinos," he tell us a serious truth ,we should pay much more attention to it .