Attorney General Merrick Garland Vows to Fight Voter ID Laws: ‘Disadvantage Minorities’

Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed to fight voter ID laws, which he characterized as a plot to “disadvantage minorities.”

Appearing alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, Garland called voter ID laws and other voter integrity laws “discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary.” The two were speaking at an event commemorating the fifty-ninth anniversary of the Bloody Sunday attacks on civil rights marchers in Selma.

Garland recalled the history of voting rights for black Americans since the end of slavery, which he said has “never been steady” into the present day, charging that voter ID laws have made it harder “for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.”

Garland said at Selma’s Tabernacle Baptist Church:

Those measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; redistricting maps that disadvantage minorities; and changes in voting administration that diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators.

“Such measures threaten the foundation of our system of government,” he added.

Garland said that he has increased the number of lawyers working in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division, referring to voter integrity laws as “discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.”

“That is why we are working to block the adoption of discriminatory redistricting plans that dilute the vote of black voters and other voters of color,” he said.

Polling shows that a majority of Americans support voter ID laws of some kind, including 60 percent of Democrats.

“A new poll, set to be released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports, indicates that 75 percent of Americans support voter ID laws that require voters to show photo identification before voting — including 60 percent of Democrats,” Breitbart News reported in 2021. “Only 21 percent oppose such laws.”

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