Protected or Guaranteed?
Word choice matters. High school teachers know and teach the difference between connotation and denotation. Denotation is the dictionary definition, the technical, specific meaning of a word. Remember the d: denotation equals dictionary.
Connotation begins with the prefix con-, which can mean against or with, depending on the root to which it is added. Connotation adds all the meanings we’ve attached to a word through usage, precise or imprecise. It adds the associated meanings.
In its position statement on voting rights, the League of Women Voters (LWV) chose to say:
The League of Women Voters of the United States believes that voting is a fundamental citizen right that must be guaranteed.
They could have written the statement as The League of Women Voters of the United States believes that voting is a fundamental citizen right that must be protected.
What’s the difference? Think about what you feel when you hear “protected.” What do you picture? Big shielding small? Strong looking out for the vulnerable? AI search results say the connotation of protected implies “safety, security, and freedom from harm. It suggests a state of being shielded from danger, injury, or loss.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives three definitions of protected. One: to cover or shield from exposure, injury, damage, or destruction; guard. Two: to maintain the status or integrity of, especially through financial or legal guarantees. Three: defend.
What do you feel when you hear “guaranteed?” What do you picture? Another search says, “The word ‘guaranteed’ carries a positive connotation, suggesting certainty and assurance. It implies that something is definite, certain, or promised to happen or be true.” Its denotations are: one: assured with a guarantee; protected or promised by a guarantee; two: certain to have a specified result or effect.
Protected focuses on something that has a safety risk and needs a defender. Guaranteed focuses on certainty and assurance.
Since its inception, the LWV has educated citizens about their right to vote and advocated to provide that certainty to use that right and responsibility.
In recent years, state and federal leaders have proposed and passed legislation claiming that our elections need defense from unsafe, insecure, at-risk systems. In making an appeal to the feeling of danger, they appeal to a feeling of sanctity, to the sacred obligation or right for Americans. Only, it’s the purity of the group that they seek to protect. It’s a moral imperative for some to propose and pass legislation like the SAVE Act (H.R. 22), a bill with provisions to ensure that everyone who registers to vote has to produce either a birth certificate with the same name as their license, a passport or both the birth certificate and marriage license. It passed in the US House of Representatives on April 10. If enacted, it adds extra expense, time, and paperwork to allow Americans who move, who change political parties, or who have different names on their licenses than their birth certificates to use their right to vote. This includes an estimated 69 million women who’ve changed their last names when they were married and millions more who’ve changed their names legally. Because it’s a moral imperative for the party championing this legislation, the paperwork, cost, and time are inconveniences worth the effort in order to vote.
Those who oppose the SAVE Act point out that these added burdens are unfair, especially to many previously or currently marginalized outgroups.
The word choices we make in defending or proposing such legislation indicate our moral ways of seeing the world.
As described in a Seattle University Law Review article by Colin Prince, social psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham proposed in 2007 that conservatives tend to base their political and moral leanings equally on all five of the basic foundations in their moral foundation theory: (1) harm/care, (2) fairness/reciprocity, (3) ingroup/loyalty, (4) authority/respect, and (5) purity/sanctity. In contrast, “liberals tend to use a narrower range”—at least in their rhetorical arguments.
“Haidt suggests that it is this discontinuity between the foundations that liberals consider and the foundations that conservatives consider that leads to moral polarization and intractable arguments. As Professor Haidt puts it, when conservatives express concerns based on the ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity foundations, liberals hear only ‘theta-waves’—that is, nonsense,” writes Prince.
The first two moral foundations, harm/care and fairness/reciprocity, focus on reducing suffering and fostering cooperation between all groups, respectively, and make up the bulk of political and moral appeals from liberals. These are the individualizing approach; they teach people to respect the rights of others. The latter three are the binding forces that connect people to roles, traditions, and institutions that help constrain selfish, imperfect human nature.
In short, the latter three are based on the premise that, given too much freedom, people will turn plain self-interest into selfishness and devious, exploitative behavior. Thus, the need to protect rather than guarantee the right to vote. The underlying assumption of voter protection legislation is that even if there is little to no evidence of voter fraud, without vigilant guarding through regulations and procedures, some deviant will take advantage.
Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory includes the theories on how each of the moral foundations evolved with human culture and accounts for variations in which of the foundations are valued across cultures. There’s a kind of neutrality in the “rightness or wrongness” of these foundations and their valuation. What’s important to note is the polarization that happens when groups value or appeal to different moral foundations. Ignoring those who matter to the “other side” or the people who seem intractably entrenched in their views is to kneecap the ability to communicate effectively and appeal successfully to them.
Using the verb "guarantee," as the LWV does, focuses on providing all Americans fair, just, and equitable access to voting. It’s based on the evidence that, at present, voting fraud happens so infrequently, due to rigorous systems monitored by state and local election officials, that we don’t need more protection. We need more enfranchisement. We overcame past threats to voting, such as poll taxes and voter intimidation; now we can maintain a level of vigilance to avoid regressing back into that kind of intentional intimidation and disenfranchisement. (Can we talk about how disenfranchisement doesn’t sound like cheating or breaking the law? It has been that, and it can be again.)The new voting law proposals, LWV and others argue, are attempting to legalize ways to erect hurdles, barriers, and impracticalities to voting that people give up on in exasperation.
Anyone who has volunteered to work the polls or serve as a poll watcher would note that this exasperation is already present. Last November, poll watchers sat next to the table where voters filled out change-of-address or provisional ballot forms, thereby having a front-row seat to voters who thought they were fully eligible to vote in Montgomery County since they’d already changed their address on their driver's license. They didn’t realize they needed to change their registration, too. When they learned they’d need their marriage or birth certificate, they looked despairingly at anyone in sight. How would they do this? When? Would it cost them?
It’s why Congresswoman Lisa McClain’s (R-MI) response to such questions from a Politico reporter in April, which was offered to them at the time they realized they wouldn’t be able to vote, smack of casual elitism. “McClain says, ‘You know when voting day is; can you prepare for that? I would think one is smart enough to prepare for that. At some point in time, you have to take a little bit of responsibility too.’”
Hoosiers take personal responsibility to heart. Don’t accuse them of not caring. But life happens at an astounding rate, and a person votes once a year, at most. Then there’s the financial calculus to obtain those documents. Politico reports that “A U.S. passport book for an adult costs $130 to $236.46. $236.46. The fee to obtain a Certificate of Citizenship is $1,385. $1,385. Changing a name on a birth certificate generally requires a court order and involves court fees, which can range from $100 to $400, depending on the state.”
So, when the LWV chooses the positively connotated “guarantees” and speaks of disenfranchisement rather than defending access to the ballot box, one is left to wonder: should we match the moral imperative in the messaging? It can feel like a change in moral focus, but if it persuades our neighbors to join us in protecting our guarantees to the right to vote, we build bridges.