Why MAGA Voter ID Laws Are Racist

Do not let MAGAs gaslight you into thinking they're for election security, when in reality they're for voter suppression

Americans should reject GOP framing that "Democrats oppose Voter ID." Why? Because, one, they don’t, and two, the MAGA fixation on new Voter ID requirements is nothing more than a brazen attempt to suppress the vote, thus winning elections by marginalizing Black, brown, and low income people. MAGA Voter ID laws have nothing to do with election security, and everything to do with dismantling our democracy, and the receipts back up this fact. Let’s Address This.

Credit: ACLU of North Carolina

Republicans claim we need the Voter ID laws they’re pushing to “secure elections.” This is a lie for a number of reasons.

Vote ID Already Exists

Voters already present an ID when registering to vote. Always have. Zero Democrat bills or policies have ever tried to change this. Zero scenarios exist in the United States where someone is able to register to vote without their government issued ID card. And this fraud protection works extremely well. Since 2000 there've been only 31 credible allegations of voter impersonation in over 1 BILLION votes cast. Let me repeat that: 31 out of 1 BILLION. And zero times have these 31 measly votes ever flipped an election—ever.

The Republican Voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s no surprise that as President, Donald Trump disbanded his own voter fraud commission, twice, due to a lack of any actual evidence of fraud.

New GOP Voter ID Laws Are Built Off of Jim Crow

Second, the GOP Voter ID bills are built off of Jim Crow racism and designed to target and suppress Black voters. These bills have nothing to do with securing our elections. For example, the US Appeals Court struck down North Carolina's discriminatory Voter ID law, ruling:

The law was intentionally designed to discriminate against black people. North Carolina legislators had requested data on voting patterns by race and, with that data in hand, drafted a law that would target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.

The Court realized that North Carolina’s Republican legislators studied voting habits of voters in North Carolina, and learned that Black voters in particular:

• tend to register and vote the same day

• use a particular form of ID to register to vote

• disproportionately vote early rather than on Election Day

• get their kids registered in high school to vote when they turn 18, and

• often vote out of precinct at wherever is most convenient based on where they work

After studying these habits, North Carolina Republicans passed Voter ID requirements that banned same day registration, banned out of precinct voting, ended high school registration, eliminated early voting, and created a new Voter ID requirement that mandated an ID that Black people were least likely to have.

North Carolina Republicans did all this not because of voter fraud or election fraud—but because they were losing elections as more and more Black people voted. In fact, North Carolina Republicans did not provide a shred of evidence (because none exists) that the aforementioned positive voting behaviors of Black voters resulted in any sort of fraud. Thus, rather than change their political platform to attract more voters, Republican politicians changed the rules of how to vote to restrict more voters who oppose them, and enable more voters who support them. This isn’t democracy, this is dictatorship.

And this is precisely what Republicans in Georgia, Florida, Texas, and the over 360 bills introduced nationwide are doing to restrict voting access. This is wrong, undemocratic, and modern day Jim Crow. In short, GOP's Voter ID mythology is to distract from their Jim Crow reality.

GOP Voter ID Laws Are Deliberately Burdensome

Finally, reject the MAGA claim that says “it’s easy to simply get a new ID card.” That misses the point that a new card shouldn’t be required in the first place, when a confirmed Voter ID card already exists. And likewise, it cruelly ignores that obtaining a new ID card takes time and money. And for American citizens, particularly if they’re living paycheck to paycheck, or have childcare responsibilities, or a strict job schedule, or are part of the sandwich generation and also taking care of their parents—adding additional arbitrary burdens (or five more arbitrary burdens like in the case of North Carolina) succeeds only in one thing—restricting turnout.

Credit: Brennan Center for Justice

And in purple states like North Carolina where elections are won or lost by less than a few points, restricting just enough voters from the other party’s base can flip an election. And that is the real election fraud we should be working to stop.

Conclusion

Here’s the bottom line. If your first reaction to losing an election is to prevent American citizens from voting next time, then you don't believe in democracy—you believe in dictatorship. The Republican attempts to delegitimize our elections through misinformation, disinformation, and Jim Crow voter suppression is dangerous to our democratic process, devastating to the security of our republic, and evil-minded through and through. It’s long past time we reject these racist MAGA Voter ID laws, once and for all. That’s how we protect our elections, and our Republic.

Why Your Support Matters: Every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of future we want. Help me create a future more committed to justice and universal human rights. Subscribe, and I welcome your thoughts, feedback, and insights. Thank you.