No, Requiring Voter ID Is Not ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ And It’s Offensive To Say That

By Curtis Hill

Whether Mitch McConnell’s boneheaded distinction between African-Americans and “Americans” was a misstatement or something more sinister, the fact remains: America will not benefit from federalizing its elections.

The narrative that continues to be stoked by the radical left is that states all over the country are actively denying blacks the right to vote and only the federal government can stop it. At the center of this controversy is the “oppressive” requirement that all voters be required to produce a valid ID, which will disparately affect black voters because everyone knows blacks are more likely than whites to not have an ID.

Joe Biden’s risible claims about voting rights are true to what Malcolm X described as the “trickery” of the white liberal: “The history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negroes think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems.”

The trickery for today’s white liberal is to manufacture racism by creating the narrative that voter ID is racist and will disproportionately harm blacks. Or that limiting the amount of early voting and other measures that increase ballot vulnerability is inherently racist because blacks won’t vote unless the federal government prods them to the polls because blacks are so dependent on the federal government.

Not only is this narrative unsupported by facts, this lie covers the truth that Democrats don’t want any election laws passed that might catch or stop from voting illegally people Democrats believe will vote Democrat—including voters who don’t want to prove they haven’t voted twice in the same election.

Every black person I know has an ID. Can any supporters of the Freedom To Vote Act or the John Lewis Voting Rights Act produce black people who tried to vote but were turned away because they did not have a valid photo ID? That’s the rap on Georgia and other states’ laws requiring all prospective voters to prove who they claim to be as a protection against claims of voter fraud.

The big deal with these state legislatures tightening security measures is allegedly not that the measures are unnecessary, but that they are discriminatory, racist, and targeted to keep blacks from voting. Democrats must believe that blacks aren’t smart or interested enough to get a photo ID, the central security measure being added to state voting protocols.

For the past year, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi have been “Jim Crowing” that the Georgia law and others like it are racist since black people are more likely than their white counterparts to not have an ID and therefore be denied their vote (for Democrats—because, according to Joe Biden, you ain’t black if you don’t vote Democrat). Really?

What is it about being black that makes one less likely to have identification? Seems like a racist sentiment. Assuming that there is a black adult without identification, we are supposed to presume that black voters without IDs would be so intimidated by a requirement to present an ID that they would rather not vote than stop by the local license branch and get an ID for the cost of a Big Mac and a Coke? Most states like Indiana will waive the minimal fee if necessary.

But if Democrats are right, and requiring identification is indeed racist, why are they only making noise about required ID voting? Shouldn’t they complain about driving, which would be racist because an ID is required to drive? What about opening a bank account, credit application, or ordering a cell phone, cable and ordinary utilities?

All these would have racist implications daily rather than just on Election Day. Yet there’s not a peep about blacks not being able to get a cell phone or cable TV, because that doesn’t get the Democrat his votes.

This all leads to the Democrat solution: kill the Senate filibuster. Of course, we are reminded that the filibuster was the procedural tool used by Democrats and Republicans to oppose civil rights legislation. But the use of the tactic that may have been used against what is now viewed as popular legislation does not make the tactic itself racist in its application.

The filibuster has evolved from its initial incarnation to a procedure that provides the minority party or position the opportunity to be heard. Since both parties have often been in the minority, both parties have benefited and suffered from its deployment.

I know it might be painful for them, but perhaps Democrats should open up their playbook and remember what they did to intimidate and suppress black voters in the first half of the 20th century.

It is unnerving that the Democrat Party draws comparisons to its champions of segregation Bull Connor and George Wallace suggesting that voter ID is a discriminatory tool, the same as the poll tax or the literacy test, that actually prevented blacks from voting in a notoriously humiliating manner. Such comparisons are a disgrace to the honored memory of all who fought and won victories in securing the right to vote.

In the continued invocation of Jim Crow, the euphemism for the abhorrent laws that legally sanctioned segregation, discrimination, and brutality, Biden and his race-baiting big government aim to racialize the filibuster so that all who support its continued use are brandished racist forevermore. I hope blacks in this nation are wearing thin to the leftist patronization that denigrates the proud history of black and white patriots who fought, bled, and died for freedom, independence, and our opportunity to vote.

[Curtis Hill is the former attorney general of Indiana.]