The highest ranking African-American in Congress says North Carolina’s controversial new voting laws aren’t protecting voters—they’re suppressing them.
“I wish we would call these laws what they are—they are voter suppression laws. They are not voter ID laws,” Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said on Wednesday’s The Daily Rundown.
Clyburn said he isn’t against requiring voters to show ID when they go to the polls, but he took issue with the type of photo identification that is now acceptable under the legislation, which Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law on Tuesday.
“We are not against voter ID,” said Clyburn. “We are against voter suppression.”
The new law reduces early voting periods, eliminates same-day voter registration, bans student IDs as a form of identification and shutters a program to pre-register 16- and 17- year-olds to vote. Supporters of the measure say it’s designed to eliminate voter fraud and standardize elections statewide. Watch Clyburn’s full comments on North Carolina’s new voting laws and what the fall could hold for Congress in the video above.
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