Sen. Bernie Sanders put “cowardly” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on notice Saturday, for “working overtime” to suppress the voting process.
Speaking at a rally in Wisconsin days before the state’s primary, the Democratic presidential candidate told the crowd that it is outrageous and un-American that Walker, like other Republican governors, is obstructing the democratic process with laws that make it harder to vote.
Sanders said that as a politician in Vermont, it never occurred to him to make voting more difficult simply because people could vote against him.
“You disagree with me? Fine that’s democracy,” Sanders said. “I run on my ideas, and I hope my ideas win.”
Sanders did not get into specifics in his allegations of voter suppression against Walker. But he was presumably referring to the Wisconsin governor’s support for a strict voter identification law in 2011. The law was tied up in the court system until 2015, when the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing it to stand.
Walker argued the law combats combat fraudulent voting. Critics say it disenfranchises far more voters than the number of fraud cases is might prevent, since voter fraud is rare. Laws boosting identification required to vote tend to impact poorer people and black and minority voters. Since those voters tend to vote for Democrats, critics see the laws as efforts to suppress voting to help Republicans. Walker has also received backlash for reducing early-voting hours.
“I say to Gov. Walker and to all of the Republican governors around this country who are trying to make it harder for poor people, for people of color, for older people, for young people to participate in the political process,” Sanders said. “I say that that is cowardly. And I say that if you are afraid of free, open and fair elections, get out of politics — get another job.”
