Using the phony claim they are fighting voter fraud, racist Republicans have contrived voter ID laws designed to make it hard for members of Democrat-friendly ethnic groups to cast their ballots. Or so the liberal narrative goes.
Republicans say they’re just trying to ensure that only those qualified to vote—citizens, for example—get to step into the voting booth. But the left has been arguing for years that these laws are crypto-fascist measures to hobble voter turnout from certain minorities and that Republicans have pursued these laws with the invidious intent of disadvantaging Democrat candidates.
Thirty-two states have some form of voter ID laws on the books, requirements that make it difficult if not impossible for those without a government-issued identification to vote. The New York Times is none too fond of these laws and frequently editorializes (sometimes even on the editorial page!) against them. Last month, the Times found a new reason to decry such laws—among the disadvantaged groups are the elderly. The headline: “Older Voters Stymied by Tighter ID Requirements.”
Director of the Democracy Program at NYU School of Law Wendy Weiser explained why to the Times: “Older Americans are more likely to have expired IDs, or IDs that don’t have their current addresses.”
How odd, however, that when it comes to older voters, Republicans “don’t make it easy for them.” After all, the majority of the Social Security Set vote for Republican candidates, especially during presidential elections. As the Times notes, in 2012, 56 percent of older voters cast their ballots for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama, and in 2016, 53 percent chose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Not only that, but a large percentage of older Americans vote: 70.9 percent of those 65 or older voted in 2016, according to the Census Bureau.
If the goal of voter ID laws is to limit the number of Democratic voters, why would Republicans sacrifice such a large number of their essential demographic in the process? The Times suggests that the elderly are just “collateral damage” in the GOP voter-suppression scheme. If so, that would put quite a dent in the notion that Republicans are evil geniuses: What kind of Machiavels devise elaborate strategies that disenfranchise their own core constituents? Could it be, just maybe, that the GOP effort is about what it says it’s about—stopping voter fraud—and not the racist enterprise envisioned by the conspiracy theorists of the left?
