Fact Check: Buttigieg Suggests There Is Nationwide ‘Racial Voter Suppression’; Black Americans Say Otherwise

CLAIM: Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg suggested during the CBS Democrat debate Tuesday evening that there is nationwide “racial voter suppression” occurring.

VERDICT: False. In fact, a recent survey revealed that the overwhelming majority of black Americans say they have not experienced voter suppression in at least ten years.

“See all of these things are connected,” Buttigieg said. “Housing, wages, the ability to get anything meaningful done on criminal justice reform, all of these things are going to be harder to deal with as long as black voices are systematically excluded from political participation, which is happening on everything from the purging of voter rolls to the closing of voting locations. And that harms everybody.”

A January 2020 Washington Post/Ipsos poll asked black Americans 18 years old and older whether they had ever experienced in the last ten years a situation where they “tried to vote in a local, state or national election and were not allowed to vote for some reason.”

In response, 92 percent of the black Americans polled — or 12-in-13 — said they have never experienced such a circumstance where they attempted to vote but were turned away. Only seven percent of respondents said they had experienced voter suppression, and one percent had no opinion on the matter.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.