Too hard to find your name on the voting rolls? Do ‘American’ poll workers have a difficult time understanding how to spell your ethnic name? Time to change that name - or so Rep. Betty Brown suggests…
A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.” The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.
Brown later told Ko: “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?” [chron]
Ohnoshedin’t. She’s not even suggesting that people take on easier to pronounce nicknames, but legally changing names to make it easier for immigrant Americans to have access to voting. For realz?
Watch Ramey Ko duke it out with Ms. Brown in the above video.
This is a very important voting rights issue up for debate - Texas Senate is debating a Voter ID legislation currently and asking for identification at the polls on Election Day is intimidating to APIA voters. Ko was arguing that asking for a form of identification to vote is difficult when dealing with this population. Studies show that “Asian American voters in states that required a form of ID were 8.5% less likely to vote compared to Asian American voters in states without voter identification requirements.”
See what your Betty Brown approved name would be on the Betty Brown Name Generator. You can just call me, Tiffani “Americana” Brown, from here on out. At least I’m still ‘Brown’.
