Here’s a post from a smart guy we met at Netroots. He runs the blog Recess Appointment, and he has an interesting take on the messaging around voter suppression:
To change the narrative, there needs to be an alternative title that doesn’t hit the ear as an overreach, but still conveys something that offends the average American. Personally, I suggest using the phrase, “voter screening laws.” It doesn’t suggest that the recent spate of laws rise to the level of past suppression efforts in place before the civil rights movement, but it ups the ante from “showing an ID” to “being judged based on your ID.” Another advantage of the term “screening” is that it ties these laws to TSA airport screening, the most common instance of “screening” in American life. Whether or not the TSA is perfect, the fact remains that a national tragedy was caused in part by lax airport security and 10 years later Americans hate airport security. Boiled down to its essence, Americans prefer terrorism to a screening that might force them to take off their shoes.
Finally, I suggest peppering the rhetoric about this issue with the word “bureaucracy.” Combining “screening” with “bureaucracy” invokes the image of a petty bureaucrat standing between voters and their fundamental civil rights. I call this the “Patty and Selma” effect after Homer Simpson’s loathsome sisters-in-law who work at the Springfield DMV. If you want average Americans to join the fight against these laws, try to connect the voting experience to waiting at the DMV and see how quickly Americans turn on Voter ID laws.
The whole thing is worth a read. Most of us agree that Democrats did a poor job with messaging with HCR, and finding a concise way to reach people who are turned off by excessive complexity or the appearance of extremism is worth some serious effort.