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Changing your name. Or not.
Oct. 12th, 2011 07:09 amDorothy Cooper went to get voter ID in Tennesse and was turned away. She had her birth certificate; she had her lease and the bills that showed her residency.
What she didn't have was an official copy of the license for both her marriages, to track her name changes. So the name on her birth certificate wasn't the name on the lease and the bills. And she's ninety six, so those papers are not going to be easy to get. Nor are they free. (Fees change from state to state; if she had been born and married in Washington state (whose fees are pretty reasonable as such things go) it would be 20$ for the birth certificate, and 20$ for each marriage certificate, for a total of 60$, plus 3-4 weeks for the documents to arrive.)
Has it occurred to anyone else that this law, combined with the custom of women changing their names when marrying, makes the barrier for women to vote higher than the barrier for men to vote? And since women are more likely to vote Democratic, this benefits Republicans?
Perhaps this is a coincidence.
In the meantime, for women who have already changed their name, it's too late. All you can do is treat your certified marriage certificate like the same kind of gold that your certified birth certificate is. Make damn sure you have it, and you keep it. Store it offsite if possible, or in a fireproof box if you can't store it offsite. Make sure you know where to get official copies and how much they cost. Because while for a man it's just the official birth certificate (the one with the embossed stamp on the paper) that's the gold standard, for you it's both your birth and marriage certificates. For you, starting over, ID-wise, costs at least twice as much.
And for women who haven't changed their names, bear this issue in mind. Changing your name when you marry is not just a temporary inconvenience, not just an issue of your status as an equal; it also has the potential to raise a barrier to your voting.
What she didn't have was an official copy of the license for both her marriages, to track her name changes. So the name on her birth certificate wasn't the name on the lease and the bills. And she's ninety six, so those papers are not going to be easy to get. Nor are they free. (Fees change from state to state; if she had been born and married in Washington state (whose fees are pretty reasonable as such things go) it would be 20$ for the birth certificate, and 20$ for each marriage certificate, for a total of 60$, plus 3-4 weeks for the documents to arrive.)
Has it occurred to anyone else that this law, combined with the custom of women changing their names when marrying, makes the barrier for women to vote higher than the barrier for men to vote? And since women are more likely to vote Democratic, this benefits Republicans?
Perhaps this is a coincidence.
In the meantime, for women who have already changed their name, it's too late. All you can do is treat your certified marriage certificate like the same kind of gold that your certified birth certificate is. Make damn sure you have it, and you keep it. Store it offsite if possible, or in a fireproof box if you can't store it offsite. Make sure you know where to get official copies and how much they cost. Because while for a man it's just the official birth certificate (the one with the embossed stamp on the paper) that's the gold standard, for you it's both your birth and marriage certificates. For you, starting over, ID-wise, costs at least twice as much.
And for women who haven't changed their names, bear this issue in mind. Changing your name when you marry is not just a temporary inconvenience, not just an issue of your status as an equal; it also has the potential to raise a barrier to your voting.
