“The attorney general will weigh in on the partisan debate over race and ballot access in a speech assessing new state laws that critics say restrict voting rights.”
— NY Times (possibly Charlie Savage, though it’s only in the home page blurb, so might not have been actually written by him*), Holder Speech to Criticize Restrictive Voting Laws
Dear Times, critics don’t say these laws restrict voting rights, they definitively do. Laws that say you cannot vote unless X or Y or Z restrict voting rights. Period. This “debate” is about whether these restrictions are legal or illegal, but either way, they are restrictions.
* The article lede itself uses a much more acceptable “new laws in several states that civil rights advocates say are meant to dampen minority participation in the national elections next year” which speaks towards intent, and therefore can use the weasely “so-and-so says” structure.
