Former President Bill Clinton recently compared voter identification laws to Jim Crow-era statutes that suppressed the black vote after the Civil War.
“There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” Clinton told liberal activists in July.
Not so, says John Fund, author of “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.” Speaking at Heritage this week, Fund said voter ID laws have won the backing of minorities, particularly in liberal Rhode Island. Fund visited our Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio to explain on our weekly podcast.
Listen to the interview with John Fund on this week’s Scribecast
Fund, a senior editor at The American Spectator, noted that criticisms of voter ID laws have been proven untrue. In Indiana and Georgia, for instance, voter turnout has increased, contrary to fears expressed by opponents.
Six states — Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Kansas — have recently adopted voter ID laws. But more than 10 years after Bush v. Gore and nearly a decade since the passage of the Help America Vote Act, Fund said states still have a long way to go before they fully combat vote fraud. He implored Americans to take action by becoming poll watchers and joining forces with groups like True the Vote.
The podcast runs about seven minutes. It was produced with the help of Hannah Sternberg. Listen to previous interviews on Scribecast or subscribe to future episodes.
