Obama: Voting Fraud Not a ‘Real Problem,’ Nobody Votes Using Somebody Else’s Name

Thursday at a ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act at the White House, President Barack Obama laughed as he said that voter fraud is not a “real problem” because “nobody wakes up and says I’m going to go vote in somebody else’s name.”

Obama said, “Photo ID laws on the surface sound good. If you poll the average American they will say, ‘Yeah you should have to show your photo ID.’ But in practice it turns out for seniors citizens and poor folks that is at not always easy to do. And by the way it doesn’t actually address a real problem. There are almost no instances of people going to vote in somebody else’s name. It’s just not a — it turns out its just not a common crime. Folks might think about shoplifting … but I am certain because we have looked at the data on this, that almost nobody wakes up and says, ‘I’m going to go vote in somebody else’s name.’ Doesn’t happen. So the only reason to pass this, despite the reasonableness of how it sounds, is to make it hard for folks to vote.”